U.S. Set to Drop Charges Against Indian Billionaire Accused of Fraud; The New York Times, May 14, 2026

Nicole HongBen ProtessWilliam K. Rashbaum and Devlin Barrett, The New York Times ; U.S. Set to Drop Charges Against Indian Billionaire Accused of Fraud

"When the Justice Department indicted India’s richest man in the final weeks of the Biden administration, prosecutors described an “elaborate” bribery scheme involving “corruption and fraud at the expense of U.S. investors.”...

Another slide also offered the government a sweetener: If prosecutors dropped the charges, Mr. Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs, echoing a pledge he made in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election.

While prosecutors later told Mr. Giuffra that the $10 billion investment would play no role in the resolution of the case, his offer received a favorable response from at least one senior Justice Department official at the meeting, according to the people familiar with the meeting."

They Were Promised New Septic Tanks. Trump Called It ‘Illegal DEI.’, May 11, 2026

 Bernard Mokam, The New York Times ; They Were Promised New Septic Tanks. Trump Called It ‘Illegal DEI.’

The Justice Department ended a deal that had helped fund a solution to the sewage crisis in rural Alabama. “Almost like we are starting all over again,” one activist said.

"It is a plight that has long plagued residents across Alabama’s Black Belt, a stretch of largely rural counties so named for its dark soil and history of slavery. Cotton flourished in the region for the same reasons that conventional septic tanks fail there: The soil is dense and holds onto water. Today there are more than 50,000 people in the region who pipe raw sewage into open trenches and pits.

Now, a seeming solution to the public health problem has been stymied by an unlikely force: the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Three years ago, the Biden administration concluded in its first-ever environmental justice investigation that Alabama officials had failed to adequately address the sanitation crisis disproportionately affecting the Black residents of Lowndes County. The state agreed to an interim agreement that unlocked millions of dollars in federal funding to provide homeowners with septic tanks that could handle the difficult soil.

But soon after President Trump returned to office last year, the Justice Department ended the settlement, calling it “illegal DEI.”

The administration also scuttled a separate $14 million E.P.A. grant that had been earmarked to install new systems and provide work force training across Lowndes, Hale and Wilcox Counties.

Community activists fear the region may be doomed to enduring wastewater challenges forever."

Judge Says Maurene Comey Can Sue the Trump Administration for Firing Her; The New York Times, April 28, 2026

Benjamin Weiser and Jonah E. Bromwich , The New York Times; Judge Says Maurene Comey Can Sue the Trump Administration for Firing Her

Ms. Comey, a former federal prosecutor who handled cases against Jeffery Epstein and Sean Combs, claimed in her suit that she was fired for political reasons.

"Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor who accused the Trump administration of firing her last year for political reasons, may proceed with a lawsuit in federal court over the government’s objection, a Manhattan judge ruled on Tuesday.

Ms. Comey, a daughter of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director and one of President Trump’s best known adversaries, said in her suit that there was no plausible explanation for her abrupt July 2025 dismissal other than Mr. Trump’s enmity toward her father or her “perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”

The Trump administration had asked the judge, Jesse M. Furman of Manhattan federal court, to dismiss Ms. Comey’s suit against the government, saying it had to be pursued first before the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent agency that hears complaints from federal workers about employment actions.

But Judge Furman held that her claim was “outside the universe of cases” that Congress intended the board to resolve, and therefore the court had jurisdiction to consider the suit. The judge did not rule on the merits of Ms. Comey’s claim."

Trump Administration Secures New Indictment Against Comey; The New York Times, April 28, 2026

Devlin Barrett and Tyler Pager , The New York Times; Trump Administration Secures New Indictment Against Comey

The new case stems from a social media post showing seashells on a North Carolina beach that the Trump administration characterized as a threat against the president.

"The Justice Department has secured a new indictment of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, over a social media post, after an indictment effort spurred by President Trump last year ended in failure.

An indictment filed in North Carolina charges Mr. Comey with making a threat against the president, and transmitting a threat across state lines, according to court records.

The new case represents another twist in the department’s tortured efforts to satisfy the demands of Mr. Trump to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Comey, a longtime target of the president’s wrath. The first indictment against Mr. Comey was thrown out by a judge, and other prosecutorial efforts against Trump targets have faltered in the face of grand juries or judges."

Trump’s anti-DEI movement comes for AI; Politico, April 27, 2026

AARON MAK , Politico ; Trump’s anti-DEI movement comes for AI

"The legal crusade against affirmative action is coming for artificial intelligence.

On Friday, the Justice Department intervened in xAI’s challenge to Colorado’s “Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence” law. In its complaint, the DOJ argues the law’s provisions curbing algorithmic bias violates people’s 14th Amendment right to be treated equally under the law.

The intervention is in some ways an outgrowth of the movement to eradicate all race-conscious policies after the landmark Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023 struck down affirmative action in college admissions."

Lawyers raise ethical concerns over Pam Bondi’s conduct as Attorney General; WMNF, April 23, 2026

DARIA MIRONOVA , WMNF; Lawyers raise ethical concerns over Pam Bondi’s conduct as Attorney General

"Lawyers are raising serious concerns about what they allege is unethical conduct by Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General and until her recent dismissal, U.S. Attorney General, in a formal complaint to the Florida Bar and amid growing scrutiny within the legal community of alumni of her alma mater, Stetson Law School in Gulfport, Florida...

The outcome will not only address Bondi’s actions but also test whether the legal system will hold influential attorneys to the same standards as everyone else."

Threats to Library Funding End With Settlement by Trump Administration; The New York Times, April 13, 2026

Jennifer Schuessler , The New York Times; Threats to Library Funding End With Settlement by Trump Administration

"The Trump administration has reached a settlement with the American Library Association and a union of cultural workers, bringing to an end its yearlong effort to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency.

The settlement, reached by the Justice Department last week, affirms that the agency will continue issuing grants and operating its programs, which provide support to institutions in every state and territory. The Trump administration reaffirmed that it had reinstated all previously canceled grants, in keeping with a separate legal ruling last year, and reversed all staff reductions. It also promised not to take any further steps to reduce the agency.

Sam Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, said the threats had set off “a chain reaction” of cuts in services and called the settlement a victory for “every American’s freedom to read and learn.”

“This settlement protects life-changing library services for communities across the country,” Helmick said."

Bondi tried to kill ethics investigations. Now she'll face one. | Opinion; USA TODAY, April 7, 2026

Chris Brennan, USA TODAY ; Bondi tried to kill ethics investigations. Now she'll face one. | Opinion

A broad coalition of lawyers and legal groups will once again accuse Pam Bondi of misconduct for using her former position to serve only Trump and not the Americans she swore to serve.

"Bondi has another fight coming – a broad coalition of lawyers and legal groups is planning to refile an ethics complaint against her with The Florida Bar. The group will once again accuse her of misconduct for using her former position as the nation's top law enforcement official to serve only Trump and not the Americans she swore to serve...

Bondi, before she got fired, proposed a new federal regulation that would give the attorney general the power to hijack the processes that state bar associations use to investigate ethics complaints filed against Department of Justice lawyers. The 30-day period for public comment about that ended on April 6.

More than a million people left comments on the Federal Register, and it looks like the bulk of them opposed Bondi's proposed regulation. They don't want the DOJ to shield public servants from ethics complaints."

Former DOJ ethics official sounds off on Bondi exit; CNN, April 3, 2026

CNN; Former DOJ ethics official sounds off on Bondi exit

"A former Justice Department ethics official fired by Pam Bondi last year speaks out on her departure."

That Was Fast: Bondi’s Portrait Already Living At The Dump; Above The Law, April 3, 2026

 Kathryn Rubino , Above The Law; That Was Fast: Bondi’s Portrait Already Living At The Dump

From the wall to the bin in minutes, with a karmic assist from her own management style.

"Pam Bondi’s tenure as attorney general didn’t just end abruptly, it ended curbside.

Because in a bit of poetic efficiency that would make even the most overworked line prosecutor crack a smile, Bondi’s official DOJ portrait was reportedly spotted in the trash mere minutes after Donald Trump gave her the boot. Just straight to the bin, like last week’s takeout and this week’s credibility."

The One Thing Trump Wanted That Pam Bondi Failed to Deliver; The New York Times, April 2, 2026

Jeffrey Toobin , The New York Times; The One Thing Trump Wanted That Pam Bondi Failed to Deliver

"But the core of Mr. Trump’s dissatisfaction with the attorney general was apparently her failure to serve his need for revenge against his enemies. She did not prosecute enough of Mr. Trump’s adversaries, and the cases she did bring were failures...

The worst consequence of the Justice Department’s pursuit of cases involving otherwise law-abiding but undocumented individuals is that it has led to untold suffering among those targeted, their families and the economies they support. Ms. Bondi’s lawyers have spent considerable time and money on the harassment, and worse, of people who have done no harm to anyone...

Perhaps worst of all, Justice Department lawyers under Ms. Bondi have often behaved in shockingly unethical ways. For decades, federal judges have looked at assistant U.S. attorneys and other Justice Department lawyers as something more than mere combatants. For good reason, judges assumed that federal lawyers told them the truth about the facts and the law of their cases. In legal terms, the actions of the Justice Department received a “presumption of regularity,” which the private bar did not enjoy. But based on the frequently appalling conduct — for instance, lying, gaslighting, hiding facts and evidence — of Justice Department lawyers in the Bondi era, many judges are no longer giving government lawyers the benefit of the doubt. Nor should they.

Replacing Ms. Bondi with her deputy, Todd Blanche, or the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, to name two likely successors, will not solve this problem unless the new attorney general makes the commitment, unlikely under the circumstances, that the Justice Department will return to its tradition of honesty and integrity."

Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records; Axios, April 1, 2026

Alex Isenstadt , Axios; Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records

[Kip Currier: This is an appalling anti-democratic determination by Trump 2.0's DOJ. The post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 was enacted through bipartisan legislating, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, to curb government corruption and promote transparency, in the wake of actions by Pres. Richard M. Nixon and his administration. The Act codifies that presidential records are the property of the federal government, not the President and the Executive Branch, and are public records.

Democratically-elected officials must be accountable to their citizenries. The Presidential Records Act represents a vital means, among others, for holding Presidents and their administrations accountable for their actions by ensuring preservation of and access to their records by present and future generations.]

"President Trump's Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios.

Why it matters: The finding is an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly a half-century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

The law, passed in the post-Watergate era as a hedge against government corruption, states that every official record regarding a president's decisions or policies belongs to the U.S. government, not the president."

Pam Bondi had a ploy. A million people had opinions about it. | Opinion; USA TODAY, March 31, 2026

Chris Brennan, USA TODAY; Pam Bondi had a ploy. A million people had opinions about it. | Opinion

Study up on the attorney general's proposed rule and then head over to the Federal Register and let her hear what you think about it while you still have time.

 "U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi devised a scheme earlier this month to run cover for Department of Justice lawyers who face ethics investigations for how they do their jobs.

Bondi wants to hijack the processes that state bar associations use to conduct those investigations, with a proposed rule to allow the DOJ to step in to stall those probes for as long as she likes.

But first, Americans get a month to tell the attorney general what they think of her scheme. And Americans have plenty to say. More than 1 million people have posted comments on the Federal Register since Bondi's proposed DOJ rule change was posted March 5. And the 30-day comment period still has a week to go until the April 6 deadline."

The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession; The New York Times, March 13, 2026

Deborah Pearlstein , The New York Times; The Trump Administration Floats a New Way to Humiliate the Legal Profession

"To fill those empty seats, the department has begun an increasingly desperate effort to recruit hires. (“Don’t be scared off by the transcript requirement,” a conservative law school reportedly told its students. “G.P.A. is not a strong factor.”) Even so, it seems too few lawyers are willing to take the chance. So the Trump administration last week offered up a different solution: a proposed rule that aims to shield Department of Justice lawyers from independent ethics investigations.

Such an arrangement would run afoul of a federal law known as the McDade Amendment, which says that government lawyers are subject to the ethics rules of the states in which they practice, “to the same extent and in the same manner” as every other lawyer licensed in the state. The proposed rule would be challenged in court immediately if it ever took effect. It shouldn’t get that far, however. It would do much more than potentially give department lawyers a free pass to lie on the president’s behalf. It would severely limit the courts’ ability to offer any kind of independent check on the executive branch.

Rules requiring lawyers to serve as honest officers of the court have been adopted by every state and the District of Columbia. They serve a host of purposes, starting with the basic right to fairness. These rules are also critical to the independence of the courts, which depend on access to reliable evidence and accurate representations by counsel.

Such rules serve an especially critical function in constitutional democracies, which distinguish themselves from authoritarian regimes in part by insisting that truth and falsehood exist separately from whatever the government may assert...

The move against state bars is of a piece with the administration’s broader strategy against universities, the media and law firms — any set of organizations capable of challenging the president’s power. And few things threaten it more than holding it to the truth."

D.C. Bar Begins Disciplinary Proceedings Against Ed Martin; The New York Times, March 10, 2026

Devlin Barrett, The New York Times ; D.C. Bar Begins Disciplinary Proceedings Against Ed Martin

A new legal filing accused Mr. Martin, a senior Justice Department official, of an unethical pressure campaign against Georgetown University.

"The disciplinary body for lawyers in the District of Columbia has filed ethics charges against Ed Martin, a senior Justice Department official in the Trump administration, accusing him of misconduct in seeking to punish Georgetown University’s law school, according to a filing.

Mr. Martin, who has spearheaded efforts by President Trump to use the Justice Department to punish the president’s perceived enemies, faces two counts of misconduct. The filing, submitted on Friday before the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility, is comparable to a civil lawsuit complaint in court and was signed by Hamilton P. Fox III, the disciplinary counsel for the D.C. bar.

Mr. Martin, who was forced to step down as the U.S. attorney in Washington because he did not have the Senate votes for confirmation, instead became the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. In that role, he has had far more access and influence in the White House than many of his predecessors.

The complaint is a significant escalation in the efforts to use state and local bars to punish lawyers in the Trump administration for purported violations of ethics rules in pursuit of the president’s aims. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi proposed a new rule to try to stall or delay bar associations from conducting such investigations into lawyers at the department."

Trump Justice Dept. Seeks to Stall State Bar Discipline of Its Lawyers; The New York Times, March 4, 2026

Devlin Barrett and Jonah E. Bromwich, The New York Times ; Trump Justice Dept. Seeks to Stall State Bar Discipline of Its Lawyers

The administration has no control over the disciplinary authorities of state bar associations, but a new proposal would let the attorney general ask them to suspend proceedings involving department lawyers.

"The Justice Department is seeking to intervene in state bar associations’ disciplinary proceedings against its lawyers, reflecting a growing fear among administration officials that attorneys who do their bidding could be punished by legal ethics organizations and lose their ability to practice law.

The department, in a notice posted online in the Federal Register, said it wanted priority in investigating any allegations of wrongdoing by its own lawyers in an effort to rein in the power of state bar authorities to investigate or discipline its lawyers.

But the department has no control over state bar disciplinary authorities, and the proposal envisions merely requesting that a state bar association “suspend any parallel investigations until the completion of the department’s review.”...

Melanie Lawrence, who served as the interim chief trial counsel for the California State Bar from 2018 to 2021, said that state bars played a critical role in the legal profession by enforcing ethics rules, even for senior Justice Department officials.

“None of these Department of Justice attorneys, from Pam Bondi to the lowliest line attorney, would have a job were it not for the license they have in a particular state,” Ms. Lawrence said. “The state bar holds the key to these people’s ability to wield their sword.”"

Trump Administration, in Apparent Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms; The New York Times, March 3, 2026

 Michael S. Schmidt,Jonah E. Bromwich and Devlin Barrett, The New York Times; Trump Administration, in Apparent Reversal, Tries to Continue Fight Against Law Firms

The administration told a court on Monday that it was abandoning its defense of executive orders targeting the firms. But on Tuesday, the Justice Department appeared to abruptly change its position.

"The Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms, a sharp reversal a day after indicating that it would drop that fight in court, according to people familiar with the matter.

The situation remained fluid Tuesday morning. It was not immediately clear what legal strategy the administration would ultimately embrace or whether a court would allow the Justice Department to reverse course.

The Justice Department did not immediately comment. The White House declined to comment...

It was not immediately clear on Tuesday what had prompted the about-face. But one question that the administration’s decision a day earlier to abandon its cases raised was whether the deals it made with nine law firms would survive and whether those contracts — which were not made public — were considered unconstitutional given that the district court ruling would be final."

Trump Administration Abandons Efforts to Impose Orders on Law Firms; The New York Times, March 2, 2026

Jonah E. Bromwich and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times; Trump Administration Abandons Efforts to Impose Orders on Law Firms

The move amounts to a surrender in a clash that has led many law firms to submit to the president rather than face the threat of his executive orders

"The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House.

With a brief due this week, Justice Department lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that they were no longer interested in pursuing the cases and were voluntarily asking the court to dismiss them.

The decision is the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court. The move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind.

The battle over the executive orders had roiled the legal establishment and led many firms to submit to Mr. Trump rather than face the existential threat his directives represented. The orders barred the firms from government business and suggested that their clients could lose government contracts, spurring widespread panic in the legal profession."

DoJ cases against protesters keep collapsing as officers’ lies are exposed in court; The Guardian, February 21, 2026

Sam Levin, The Guardian; DoJ cases against protesters keep collapsing as officers’ lies are exposed in court

"Department of Justice prosecutors across the US have suffered a string of embarrassing defeats in their aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against people accused of “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers.

In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.

But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts.

In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false. Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case across jurisdictions.

Still, the costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months."

Failure to Alert Judge to Press Law for Reporter Search Draws Ethical Scrutiny; The New York Times, February 5, 2026

Charlie Savage , The New York Times; Failure to Alert Judge to Press Law for Reporter Search Draws Ethical Scrutiny

"The disclosure that the Justice Department failed to alert a judge about a 1980 law protecting journalists when applying for a warrant to search a Washington Post reporter’s home last month is casting new scrutiny on the legal issues raised by the raid.

Specialists in legal ethics said that if the prosecutor who submitted the application, Gordon D. Kromberg, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, knew about the 1980 law, the failure to bring it up violated a longstanding legal ethics rule.

The Justice Department and Mr. Kromberg did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did lawyers for The Post and its reporter.

Here is a closer look."