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Tag: U.S. Justice Department

  • Illinois deputy found guilty of murder in the shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911

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    An Illinois jury on Wednesday convicted a former sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 asking for help.The jurors, though, did not convict Sean Grayson on the first-degree murder charge that prosecutors sought and that carries a prison sentence of 45 years to life. The 31-year-old Grayson instead could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, or probation. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 29.Grayson and another deputy arrived at Massey’s home in Springfield, Illinois, early on the morning of July 6, 2024, after she reported a prowler. Grayson shot the 36-year-old woman after confronting her about how she was handling a pot of hot water she had removed from her stove. Grayson and his attorneys argued that he feared Massey would scald him with the hot water.Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes, and prompted a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.Grayson originally was charged with first-degree murder, but after the seven-day trial, the jury was given the option of considering second-degree murder, which applies when a defendant faces a “serious provocation” or believes their action is justified even if that belief is unreasonable.He could be sentenced from four to 20 years, a sentence that could be halved if he behaves behind bars. He could also be sentenced to probation and avoid prison time entirely.Body camera video recorded by the other Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy on the scene that morning, Dawson Farley, was a key part of the prosecution’s case. It showed Massey, who struggled with mental health issues, telling the officers, “Don’t hurt me,” and repeating, “Please God.”When the deputies entered the house, Grayson saw the pot on the stove and ordered Massey to move it. Massey jumped up to retrieve the pot and she and Grayson joked about how he said he was backing off from the “hot, steaming water.” Massey then replied, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”Both Grayson and Farley drew their pistols and yelled at Massey to put the pot down. Grayson told investigators he thought her “rebuke” meant she intended to kill him and, in the following commotion, fired three shots, striking Massey just below the eye.Farley, who at the time of the shooting was a probationary employee subject to firing for any reason, testified that Massey didn’t say or do anything that caused him to view her as a threat. But under cross-examination, he acknowledged that he initially reported to investigators that he feared for his safety because of the hot water. Farley did not fire his weapon and was not charged.Grayson testified in his own defense and was the first witness his attorneys called. He told jurors he noticed the bottom of the pot was red and he believed Massey planned to throw the water at him. He said Massey’s words felt like a threat and that he drew his gun because officers are trained to use force to get compliance.“She done. You can go get it, but that’s a head shot,” Grayson told Farley after the shooting. “There’s nothing you can do, man.”Grayson relented moments later and went to get his kit while Farley found dish towels to apply pressure to the head wound. When Grayson returned, Farley told him his help wasn’t necessary, so he threw his kit on the floor and said, “I’m not even gonna waste my med stuff then.”Prosecutors said that response indicated Grayson’s disregard for public safety, an argument that persuaded Judge Ryan Cadagin to keep Grayson in jail awaiting trial. An Illinois appellate court subsequently ruled that Grayson should be released under the Pre-Trial Fairness Act. An appeal to the state Supreme Court has yet to be decided.Massey’s death also forced the early retirement of the sheriff who hired Grayson and generated a U.S. Justice Department inquiry. The federal probe was resolved with Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department’s agreement to fortify training, particularly de-escalation practices; develop a program in which mental health professionals can respond to emergency calls; and to generate data on use-of-force incidents.Massey’s family, with the assistance of civil rights attorney Ben Crump, settled a lawsuit against the county for $10 million and state lawmakers changed Illinois law to require fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

    An Illinois jury on Wednesday convicted a former sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 asking for help.

    The jurors, though, did not convict Sean Grayson on the first-degree murder charge that prosecutors sought and that carries a prison sentence of 45 years to life. The 31-year-old Grayson instead could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, or probation. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 29.

    Grayson and another deputy arrived at Massey’s home in Springfield, Illinois, early on the morning of July 6, 2024, after she reported a prowler. Grayson shot the 36-year-old woman after confronting her about how she was handling a pot of hot water she had removed from her stove. Grayson and his attorneys argued that he feared Massey would scald him with the hot water.

    Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes, and prompted a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

    Grayson originally was charged with first-degree murder, but after the seven-day trial, the jury was given the option of considering second-degree murder, which applies when a defendant faces a “serious provocation” or believes their action is justified even if that belief is unreasonable.

    He could be sentenced from four to 20 years, a sentence that could be halved if he behaves behind bars. He could also be sentenced to probation and avoid prison time entirely.

    Body camera video recorded by the other Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy on the scene that morning, Dawson Farley, was a key part of the prosecution’s case. It showed Massey, who struggled with mental health issues, telling the officers, “Don’t hurt me,” and repeating, “Please God.”

    When the deputies entered the house, Grayson saw the pot on the stove and ordered Massey to move it. Massey jumped up to retrieve the pot and she and Grayson joked about how he said he was backing off from the “hot, steaming water.” Massey then replied, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

    Both Grayson and Farley drew their pistols and yelled at Massey to put the pot down. Grayson told investigators he thought her “rebuke” meant she intended to kill him and, in the following commotion, fired three shots, striking Massey just below the eye.

    Farley, who at the time of the shooting was a probationary employee subject to firing for any reason, testified that Massey didn’t say or do anything that caused him to view her as a threat. But under cross-examination, he acknowledged that he initially reported to investigators that he feared for his safety because of the hot water. Farley did not fire his weapon and was not charged.

    Grayson testified in his own defense and was the first witness his attorneys called. He told jurors he noticed the bottom of the pot was red and he believed Massey planned to throw the water at him. He said Massey’s words felt like a threat and that he drew his gun because officers are trained to use force to get compliance.

    “She done. You can go get it, but that’s a head shot,” Grayson told Farley after the shooting. “There’s nothing you can do, man.”

    Grayson relented moments later and went to get his kit while Farley found dish towels to apply pressure to the head wound. When Grayson returned, Farley told him his help wasn’t necessary, so he threw his kit on the floor and said, “I’m not even gonna waste my med stuff then.”

    Prosecutors said that response indicated Grayson’s disregard for public safety, an argument that persuaded Judge Ryan Cadagin to keep Grayson in jail awaiting trial. An Illinois appellate court subsequently ruled that Grayson should be released under the Pre-Trial Fairness Act. An appeal to the state Supreme Court has yet to be decided.

    Massey’s death also forced the early retirement of the sheriff who hired Grayson and generated a U.S. Justice Department inquiry. The federal probe was resolved with Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department’s agreement to fortify training, particularly de-escalation practices; develop a program in which mental health professionals can respond to emergency calls; and to generate data on use-of-force incidents.

    Massey’s family, with the assistance of civil rights attorney Ben Crump, settled a lawsuit against the county for $10 million and state lawmakers changed Illinois law to require fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

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  • Justice Department sues California, other states that have declined to share voter rolls

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    The U.S. Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday for failing to hand over the state’s voter rolls, alleging she is unlawfully preventing federal authorities from ensuring state compliance with federal voting regulations and safeguarding federal elections against fraud.

    The Justice Department also sued Weber’s counterparts in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, who have similarly declined its requests for their states’ voter rolls.

    “Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement on the litigation. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

    In its lawsuit against Weber, who is the state’s top elections official, the Justice Department argues that it is charged — including under the National Voter Registration Act — with ensuring that states have proper protocols for registering voters and maintaining accurate and up-to-date rolls, and therefore is due access to state voter rolls in order to ensure they are so maintained.

    “The United States has now been forced to bring the instant action to seek legal remedy for Defendants’ refusal to comply with lawful requests pursuant to federal law,” the lawsuit states.

    Weber, in a statement, called the lawsuit “a fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,” a “blatant overreach” and “an unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

    “The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters,” Weber said.

    She said California law requires that state officials “protect our voters’ sensitive private information,” and that the Justice Department not only “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands,” but ignored invitations from the state for federal officials to come to Sacramento and view the data in person — a process Weber said was “contemplated by federal statutes” and would “protect California citizens’ private and personal data from misuse.”

    The Justice Department has demanded a “current electronic copy of California’s computerized statewide voter registration list”; lists of “all duplicate registration records in Imperial, Los Angeles, Napa, Nevada, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, and Stanislaus counties”; a “list of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list” and the dates of their removals.

    It has also demanded a list of all registrations that have been canceled because voters in the state died; an explanation for a recent decline in the recorded number of “inactive” voters in the state; and a list of “all registrations, including date of birth, driver’s license number, and last four digits of Social Security Number, that were cancelled due to non-citizenship of the registrant.”

    The litigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to push its demands around voting policies onto individual states, which are broadly tasked under the constitution with managing their own elections.

    The lawsuit follows an executive order by Trump in March that purported to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including by requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship and requiring states to disregard mail ballots that are not received by election day.

    The order built on years of unsubstantiated claims by Trump — and refuted by experts — that the U.S. voting system currently allows for rampant fraud and abuse, and that those failures compromised the results of elections, including his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

    Various voting rights groups and 19 states, including California, have sued to block the order.

    Advocacy groups say the order, and especially it’s requirements for proving citizenship, would disenfranchise legal U.S. citizen voters who lack ready access to identifying documents such as passports and REAL IDs. They have said barring the acceptance of mail ballots received after election day would also create barriers for voters, especially in large state such as California that need time to process large volumes of ballots.

    California currently accepts ballots if they are postmarked by election day and received within a certain number of days after.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has called Trump’s executive order an “illegal power grab” that California and other states will “fight like hell” to stop. His office referred questions about the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Weber to Weber’s office.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, defended the need for the lawsuit, saying in a statement that clean voter rolls “protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”

    Weber, who in April called Trump’s executive order “an illegal attempt to trample on the states and Congress’s constitutional authority over elections,” said Thursday that she would not be bowed by the lawsuit.

    “The sensitive data of California citizens should not be used as a political tool to undermine the public trust and integrity of elections,” she said. “I will always stand with Californians to protect states’ rights against federal overreach and our voters’ sensitive personal information. Californians deserve better. America deserves better.”

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    Kevin Rector

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  • Russian superyacht, with helideck and marble fireplace, was seized. Now you can bid on it

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    The Russian oligarch billionaire lifestyle can be yours for the potentially low, low price of tens of millions of dollars, courtesy of the U.S. government.

    The National Maritime Services, working on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service, is auctioning off a superyacht, the $300-million-plus Amadea, which currently sits in a San Diego harbor, with a bid deposit starting at $10 million.

    Florida-based Fraser Yachts, the auction’s promotional agents, described the prize “as one of the most comprehensively equipped yachts in her class.”

    The luxury yacht Amadea, which officials say was seized from a Russian oligarch, is set to be auctioned.

    (U.S. Marshals Service and National Maritime Services)

    The 348-foot-long ship was built in 2017 and can comfortably host 16 guests in eight luxurious staterooms.

    An additional 21 cabins can house a professional crew of up to 36 workers.

    One of the ship’s jewels is a glass elevator that serves all decks, while a second lift is available for crew.

    The yacht includes a glass-edged mosaic pool with submerged barstools, and an outdoor bar area surrounded by sun pads (cushioned areas for perfecting your tan).

    The ship’s main salon showcases a piano and marble fireplace.

    A huge yacht with a city skyline behind it.

    The superyacht Amadea sails into San Diego Bay on June 27.

    (Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

    The yacht was designed by Espen Øino, the acclaimed Norwegian designer and naval architect, while its decadent interiors were created by designer François Zuretti.

    The ship has an ocean-crossing range of 8,000 nautical miles at a speed of 13 knots.

    For late-arriving quests, the Amadea also boasts a helideck.

    The U.S. Justice Department maintained in a 2023 civil forfeiture complaint that Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov was the ship’s owner. Kerimov took possession of the vessel sometime around 2021, though his transactions were cloaked through shell companies, according to the complaint.

    A small boat is seen beneath the bow of a large boat.

    The Amadea is escorted by the Coast Guard in the ocean off San Diego. The vessel was seized from a sanctioned Russian oligarch, officials say.

    (Gregory Bull / Associated Press)

    Kerimov was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 and labeled a “specially designated national” for his alleged role in money laundering related to the purchase of French villas.

    The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control determined Kerimov was a direct beneficiary of Russian President Vladimir Putin and “played a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities,” which includes the invasion of Ukraine.

    The U.S. has said it’s working with allies to put pressure on Russian oligarchs, some of whom are close to Putin and have had their yachts seized, to try to compel him to stop the war, the Associated Press reports.

    The Amadea was seized in Fiji in April 2022 and arrived in San Diego in June that year.

    The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in March that the Amadea was to be forfeited to the federal government. That decision is being appealed by the man who claims to own the sumptuous vessel — Eduard Khudainatov, the nonsanctioned former chairman of Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, according to the Associated Press. U.S. prosecutors maintain that Khudainatov is a straw owner of the yacht.

    On July 1, the Marshals Service authorized Fraser Yachts as the promotional agent for the sealed bid auction.

    The auction is being conducted in U.S. dollars and is running until 11 a.m. on Sept. 10 at amadeaauction.com/.

    The initial deposit necessary to make a bid is $10 million. All bids will remain sealed, with the highest bidder winning the yacht.

    Should multiple participants tie with the top price, each bidder will be given a chance to increase their offering until a winner is determined.

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    Andrew J. Campa

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  • Family of DC man killed by police outside a McDonald’s in Southeast calls for federal probe – WTOP News

    Family of DC man killed by police outside a McDonald’s in Southeast calls for federal probe – WTOP News

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    The relatives of Justin Robinson believe police didn’t do enough to de-escalate the situation before opening fire on the 25-year-old who worked as a violence interrupter in the city.

    The family of a man who was shot and killed by police outside a McDonald’s in Southeast D.C. earliest this month is calling for the U.S. Justice Department to launch a civil rights investigation into his killing. The relatives of Justin Robinson believe police didn’t do enough to de-escalate the situation before opening fire on the 26-year-old who worked as a violence interrupter in the city.

    “This was somebody that had a bright future, and, unfortunately, due to the aggressive actions of MPD officers, that life has been tragically cut short,” said Andrew O. Clarke, an attorney for the family.

    Justin Robinson (Courtesy Robinson family)

    At 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, police found Robinson unconscious in his car with a gun on his lap, after he had crashed into the fast-food restaurant at 2529 Good Hope Road.

    Police body camera footage appears to show officers coming up to the car as Robinson began to wake up. Robinson could be seen partially lowering the driver’s side window as officers surrounded the vehicle. That was followed by officers sticking their service weapons into the open window and demanding that Robinson raise his hands and not touch his weapon.

    Last week, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said the video showed Robinson grabbing an officer’s gun before officers opened fire, killing Robinson. Smith also said the video shows Robinson’s gun falling from his left hand.

    “The police are saying that they saw a gun in his lap, but how do you justify then placing a firearm within inches of somebody’s face that was just unconscious and is coming to consciousness at that time, and they really have not been able to explain that part of it,” Clarke said.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the office, as well as the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is aware of the “circumstances surrounding the tragic shooting of Justin Robinson.”

    “If evidence reveals potential violations of federal criminal statutes, the Justice Department will take appropriate action,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement to WTOP.

    The Metropolitan Police Department said the case remains under investigation.

    “The entire case will be independently reviewed by the United States Attorney’s Office,” the department said in an email.

    The officers involved are on paid administrative leave.

    Robinson’s family reacts

    Robinson’s sister Tralicia Robinson remembered her brother as a “bubbly individual” who cherished his job with the D.C. Office of the Attorney General’s “Cure the Streets” program.

    Robinson had a criminal past, but his sister said he had turned his life around and wanted to help others not make the same mistakes he did.

    “Helping people was his passion,” she said.

    Tralicia recalled getting a call from Justin’s twin brother while kayaking. She recalled thinking her brother was calling to see her on the water with his niece, but instead, she said through tears, he told her what had happened.

    “I just remember paddling back to shore, breaking down. My knees were buckling. They were collapsing,” she told WTOP.

    His sister said days later, she saw the body camera footage before it was released to the public and what she saw left her outraged.

    “I thought poor tactics. I was furious, I was sad. I was confused. Now, I was stuck with a thought of, ‘I can’t believe that this happened to Justin,’” she said.

    The loss of her brother, she said, has not only shaken their family, but the community as well.

    “It left pain. You have some people again who are outraged. You have some people who feel unprotected. You have so many people asking, Where do we go from here? It just left the community in shock,” Tralicia said.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Mike Murillo

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  • Prepare For Unprecedented Assault On Justice System If Trump Wins, Experts Warn

    Prepare For Unprecedented Assault On Justice System If Trump Wins, Experts Warn

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    In the two-and-a-half years since the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, Congress passed a bipartisan law closing loopholes in the complex process of choosing a new president that Donald Trump tried to exploit in his push to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.

    Candidates for crucial swing-state election posts who backed Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election all lost their bids in last year’s elections. And, this week, federal prosecutors filed four felony charges against the former president for his role in the scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s win.

    But while those avenues for electoral mischief may be blocked or severely constrained in 2024, the prosecution — along with another federal indictment accusing Trump of mishandling classified information after leaving office — is providing additional urgency among conservatives for a plan to make over the U.S. Department of Justice.

    That’s a step democracy advocates warn could mark a new assault on the U.S. system should Trump win the presidency a second time.

    “The incentives for him to move in that direction will be even stronger, and we should worry even more about the degree of control he’ll attempt to wield over federal law enforcement,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College and co-director of Bright Line Watch, an academic group that monitors democracy in the U.S. “We have many examples from other countries demonstrating the dangers of a political takeover of law enforcement.”

    To be sure, other risks for American democracy beyond a takeover of federal law enforcement remain. The myth that Trump won the 2020 election has taken firm hold in the Republican electorate, with nearly 60% of GOP voters saying in an Associated Press poll last fall that Biden was not legitimately elected. The belief has led millions to distrust voting machines, mail balloting and vote counting while leading to death threats against election officials.

    Numerous rural counties have seen election conspiracy theorists take control of elections and vote-counting, raising worries of more election chaos next year. Certification of election results remains a potential pressure point for delaying or undermining a final outcome in the next election — whether by local commissions, state certification boards, legislatures or even Congress.

    Despite those potential risks, the accelerating GOP primary has highlighted a new worry for some — calls by Trump and his allies for more control of federal prosecutions. Several legal experts highlighted this as perhaps the most troubling threat to the country’s democratic institutions should Trump — or another Republican — win the White House next year.

    Currently, the president can appoint the attorney general and other top Department of Justice officials, subject to Senate confirmation, but has more limited tools to change the behavior of career prosecutors.

    “Doing away with or diminishing the independence of the Justice Department would be a huge mistake,” said Paul Coggins, past president of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys. “We can’t afford for people to lose more faith in the system than they have now.”

    He said federal prosecutors have been paying attention to Trump’s recent vows to seize greater control of the system.

    “I think the fact that Trump has raised this idea sent shock waves through prosecutors everywhere,” Coggins said.

    Trump and other conservatives have argued that such a takeover is overdue, especially because they see the prosecutions against him as the 2024 campaign is heating up as nakedly political. Indeed, after his previous indictment, Trump vowed to pursue Biden and his family should he return to the White House.

    “This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot,” Trump told reporters after his most recent arraignment. “So if you can’t beat ’em, you persecute ’em or you prosecute ’em.”

    At a Republican Party dinner Friday night in Alabama, Trump repeated his claims that the latest criminal case he faces is an “outrageous criminalization of political speech,” and said his “enemies” were trying to stop him and his political movement with “an army of rabid, left-wing lawyers, corrupt and really corrupt Marxist prosecutors,” “deranged government agents and rogue intelligence officers.”

    He called the indictment “an act of desperation by a failed and disgraced, crooked Joe Biden and his radical left thugs to preserve their grip on power.”

    Allies of Trump’s, including his former budget office head Russell Vought and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was involved enough in the push to overturn the election that he is referred to in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 4,” are working on a plan to increase control of the federal bureaucracy the next time a Republican is in the White House. That would include at the Department of Justice, where internal regulations limit the influence of the president and other political actors.

    Vought and the organization he helps run to map out future control of the bureaucracy, the Center for Renewing America, did not respond to requests for comment.

    The push does not only come from Trump, suggesting how his contentious views toward federal law enforcement have shaped a party that has long promoted itself as the protector of law-and-order. On the day the most recent indictment was released this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a new FBI director and the right for defendants to choose not to be prosecuted in Washington, D.C., a primarily Democratic city. House Republicans have empaneled a committee to investigate what they call the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement. FBI director Christopher Wray, a Republican nominated to the position by Trump, has become a frequent target of Republican attacks.

    Some longtime conservatives say they’ve become disillusioned with the agency’s conduct, especially in recent years as they see it pursuing Trump with more vigor than Democrats such as Biden’s son Hunter.

    “The Justice Department has become more politicized and leaned more and more to the left as the years have gone on,” said Mark Corallo, who was communications director for the department under President George W. Bush.

    Corallo, who described his politics as “Never-Again Trump,” said career lawyers in the agency are reliably Democratic. But he also scoffed at the notion of being able to more tightly control them, absent reform of the civil service system that protects their jobs.

    “I think there is a zero chance that the career people at the Justice Department will ever bend to his will,” Corallo said.

    Trump tried to enlist the agency in his fight to stay in office. Election conspiracy theorists urged him to use the Department of Justice to seize voting machines to highlight the search for fraud. Trump tried to get the agency to announce probes of some of his supporters’ more paranoid theories of how the election was stolen, even after his own attorney general, William Barr, told him there was no indication of widespread fraud.

    Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice, said Justice Department attorneys helped stop Trump’s attempt to stay in office, and worried that, if he becomes president again, there may not be similar safeguards the next time.

    “Had the department not resisted the attempts to enlist it in this conspiracy, it could have actually led to a sabotaged election,” she said.

    What happens in future elections, voting officials said, is up to the voters themselves.

    “Every American needs to consider what role are they going to play in this moment,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in an interview. “Are they going to potentially support candidates who would enable ― not just an obstruction ― but an elimination of justice? Or are they going to consider that when weighing their decisions at the ballot box next year?”

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