Department of Justice

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• 6/20/2021
  

  Should Immigration Courts Operate under the Attorney General? History Says this is an Accident that Should be Undone

  by Alison Peck

  Franklin Roosevelt was pushed fear of a Nazi fifth column and big business's hostility toward foreign-born labor leaders to shift immigration courts from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice, where they act as an extension of law enforcement. Legislation to make them independent is long overdue. 

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• SOURCE: HuffPost
  6/11/2021
  

  White House Pushes To Jump-Start Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases Board

  The White House has named nominees for the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, which will reexamine unsolved murder cases of the civil rights era.

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• SOURCE: Merrittocracy
  10/26/2020
  

  Merrittocracy with Keri Leigh Merritt: Kevin Kruse on the 2020 Election

  Kevin Kruse joins host Keri Leigh Merritt to discuss his new book on the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Era and the relevance of that history to the 2020 election. 

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• SOURCE: WAMU
  7/27/2020
  

  The Justice Department Is Turning 150. Some Agency Veterans Say It Needs A Facelift

  Longtime watchers in government and law said the environment today echoes the most chaotic period in the modern history of the Justice Department. Watergate.

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• SOURCE: Politico
  7/20/2020
  

  'The Clock is Ticking': White House under Pressure to Reopen Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases

  The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board was established by Congress in January 2019. Now nominees for the board named by the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Society of American Archivists, and the American Bar Association are being "vetted" by the White House, raising concerns about partisan interference.

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• SOURCE: Letters from an American
  3/21/2020
  

  Letters from an American: March 21, 2020

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  Recent stories suggest that those currently in power feel it is their right, and maybe their duty, to run the country in their own interest, ignoring-- or suppressing-- dissent.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  3/7/2020
  

  The Mission to Hunt Nazis Has Become a Race Against Time

  The latest target was a 94-year-old man in Tennessee said to have been a guard at a concentration camp in Germany. “These people are old, and they’re dying,” a prosecutor said of the cases’ urgency.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/18/19
  

  What Bill Barr doesn’t understand about the office of attorney general

  by Cornell W. Clayton

  The U.S. attorney general’s office started in the judicial branch, not the executive — and has never been entirely under presidential control.

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• 7/28/19
  

  The Long History of Unjust and Lawless Attorneys General

  by Ronald L. Feinman

  It isn't just William Barr. 

• 
• 4-6-17
  

  When Was the Department of Justice Established?

  by Jennifer Freilach

  The surprisingly fascinating story behind the DOJ’s creation.