Read the Justice Dept. Interview With Ghislaine Maxwell
Read the Justice Dept. Interview With Ghislaine Maxwell – The New York Times More
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in ElectionsThe latest round of firings targets not just prosecutors but also support staff members who played a smaller role.The Trump administration fired another batch of nearly 10 Justice Department employees who once worked for the special counsel’s office that twice indicted President Trump, some in relatively minor roles, according to two people familiar with the matter.The dismissals on Friday were the latest sign that the administration was reaching deep into the inner workings of the Justice Department to find and expel not just people who had a direct part in investigating and prosecuting Mr. Trump during his four years out of office but also those who had played secondary roles in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.The latest firings, which include at least two federal prosecutors, appeared to once again ignore traditional civil service protections and were said to be based on a broad assertion of presidential authority, according to two people who spoke about the moves on condition of anonymity to avoid discussing a politically sensitive subject.At least seven others who were fired had served as support staff to Mr. Smith’s office, the two people said. They helped manage the office, handling tasks like overseeing financial records, performing paralegal services or conducting information security.Since the early days of Mr. Trump’s second term, the president’s aides have repeatedly sought to fire, punish or demote the people who worked on the cases against him as well on cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.The purging from government ranks of anyone associated with these cases has been sporadic, with fresh batches of firings coming at different intervals and often without much explanation, other than the citing of Article II of the Constitution, which defines the powers of a president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsFor the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against the man, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders to “facilitate” his release from El Salvador.When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had been returned to the United States to face criminal charges after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, she sought to portray the move as the White House dutifully upholding the rule of law.“This,” she said, “is what American justice looks like.”Her assertion, however, failed to grapple with the fact that for the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release.While the indictment filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia contained serious allegations, accusing him of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants as a member of the street gang MS-13, it had no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.Well before Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit seeking to force the White House to release him from El Salvador, administration officials had tried all means at their disposal to keep him overseas as they figured out a solution to the problem they had created, The New York Times found in a recent investigation.Cesar Ábrego García, left, and Cecilia García, center, the brother and mother of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, participated in a press conference with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, following his trip to El Salvador.Allison Bailey for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsThe department’s use of the law is all but certain to be met with legal challenges.The Trump administration plans to leverage a law intended to punish corrupt recipients of federal funding to pressure institutions like Harvard to abandon their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Justice Department officials announced late Monday.President Trump’s political appointees at the department cited antisemitism on campuses as justification for using the law, the False Claims Act, to target universities and other institutions that Mr. Trump views as bastions of opposition to his agenda and a ripe populist target to rile up his right-wing base.“Institutions that take federal money only to allow antisemitism and promote divisive D.E.I. policies are putting their access to federal funds at risk,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate these violations of civil rights — inaction is not an option.”The department’s use of the law is all but certain to be met with legal challenges. Last week, the Justice Department notified Harvard, which receives billions in government grants, of an investigation into whether its admissions process had been used to defraud the government by failing to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended affirmative action.The department will seek fines and damages in most instances where violations are found. But it will consider criminal prosecutions in extreme circumstances, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche warned in a memo to staff.The initiative will be a joint project of the department’s anti-fraud unit and its Civil Rights Division, which has been sharply downsized and redirected from its historical mission of addressing race-based discrimination to pursue Mr. Trump’s culture war agenda.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsEmil Bove III has emerged as a top contender to fill a vacancy on the appeals court covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, people familiar with the matter said.President Trump is considering nominating Emil Bove III, a top Justice Department official responsible for enacting his immigration agenda and ordering the purge of career prosecutors, to be a federal appeals judge, according to people familiar with the matter.Mr. Bove, 44, is a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump and a longtime federal prosecutor in New York. He was the Justice Department official at the center of the Trump administration’s request earlier this year to dismiss a corruption case against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams.One of the department’s most formidable and feared political appointees in the second Trump administration, he has emerged as a top contender to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, those people said.There are two vacancies on the court — one based in New Jersey and one in Delaware. It is not clear which seat Mr. Bove is under consideration for. He has a property in Pennsylvania, and some conservatives have called for moving the Delaware-based seat to Pennsylvania.The people familiar with the matter spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal matter that has not yet been publicly announced. They cautioned that the timing remains unclear, and the intentions could still shift.If Mr. Bove is nominated for the post, Democrats are all but certain to use his Senate confirmation process to scrutinize his role in some of the Justice Department’s most contentious actions since Mr. Trump took office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsSenior officials at the Justice Department are trying to use executive privilege to prevent a lawyer dismissed from the department from testifying to Congress on Monday about the details of a disagreement with supervisors about restoring the gun rights of Mel Gibson, the actor and prominent supporter of President Trump.In a letter reviewed by The New York Times, a lawyer in the office of Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, warned Elizabeth G. Oyer, the Justice Department’s former pardon attorney, that she was “not authorized to disclose” records about the firearms rights issue to lawmakers.A lawyer for Ms. Oyer responded with his own missive, accusing the department of trying to intimidate a whistle-blower on the cusp of a congressional hearing.While the facts of the dispute are limited to a relatively narrow issue, the potential ripple effects could be far-reaching. The administration has already fired dozens of career prosecutors, some of whom have spoken publicly about their experiences, while others may yet still.The new conflict began Friday night, when Ms. Oyer learned that deputy U.S. Marshals were being sent to her home to deliver the Justice Department’s letter. After Ms. Oyer assured the department she had received the letter via email, the deputies’ delivery was canceled.Her lawyer, Michael Bromwich, noted in his letter to Mr. Blanche that Ms. Oyer’s teenage son was home alone at the time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsA senior Justice Department immigration lawyer was put on indefinite leave Saturday after questioning the Trump administration’s decision to deport a Maryland man to El Salvador — one day after representing the government in court.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche suspended Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, for failing to “follow a directive from your superiors,” according to a letter sent to Mr. Reuveni and obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Reuveni — who was praised as a “top-notched” prosecutor by his superiors in an email announcing his promotion two weeks ago — is the latest career official to be suspended, demoted, transferred or fired for refusing to comply with a directive from President Trump’s appointees to take actions they deem improper or unethical.“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement sent to The Times on Saturday. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”Under questioning by a federal judge on Friday, Mr. Reuveni conceded that the deportation last month of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who had a court order allowing him to stay in the United States, should never have taken place. Mr. Reuveni also said he had been frustrated when the case landed on his desk.Mr. Reuveni, a respected 15-year veteran of the immigration division, asked the judge for 24 hours to persuade his “client,” the Trump administration, to begin the process of retrieving and repatriating Mr. Abrego Garcia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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in ElectionsCase 1:24-cr-00556-DEH Document 175-1 Filed 03/25/25
Page 10 of 15
the motion is uncontested, the court should ordinarily presume that the prosecutor is acting in good
faith and dismiss the indictment without prejudice”). But Adams’s consent-which was
negotiated without my Office’s awareness or participation-would not guarantee a successful
motion, given the basic flaws in the Department’s rationales. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
F. Supp. at 117 (declining to “rubber stamp” dismissal because although defendant did not appear
to object, “the court is vested with the responsibility of protecting the interests of the public on
whose behalf the criminal action is brought”).
The Government “may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment” under Rule 48(a) of the
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. “The principal object of the ‘leave of court’ requirement is
apparently to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment, e.g., charging, dismissing, and
recharging, when the Government moves to dismiss an indictment over the defendant’s objection.”
Rinaldi v. United States, 434 U.S. 22, 30 n.15 (1977). “But the Rule has also been held to permit
the court to deny a Government dismissal motion to which the defendant has consented if the
motion is prompted by considerations clearly contrary to the public interest.” Id.; see also JM 9-
2.050 (reflecting Department’s position that a “court may decline leave to dismiss if the manifest
public interest requires it).
“Rarely will the judiciary overrule the Executive Branch’s exercise of these prosecutorial
decisions.” Blaszczak, 56 F.4th at 238. But courts, including the Second Circuit, will nonetheless
inquire as to whether dismissal would be clearly contrary to the public interest. See, e.g., id. at
238-42 (extended discussion of contrary to public interest standard and cases applying it); see also
JM 9-2.050 (requiring “a written motion for leave to dismiss. . . explaining fully the reason for
the request” to dismiss for cases of public interest as well as for cases involving bribery). Although
it appears rare, at least one court in our district has rejected a dismissal under Rule 48(a) as contrary
to the public interest, regardless of the defendant’s consent. See Nederlandsche Combinatie, 428
F. Supp. At 116-17 (“After reviewing the entire record, the court has determined that a dismissal
of the indictment against Mr. Massaut is not in the public interest. Therefore, the government’s
motion to dismiss as to Mr. Massaut must be and is denied.”).
The cases show some inconsistency concerning what courts should do if they find the
standard for dismissal without prejudice not met. Some have instead dismissed indictments with
prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Madzarac, 678 F. Supp. 3d 43 (D.D.C. 2023). The better-
reasoned view, however, is that courts considering a Rule 48(a) motion to dismiss without
prejudice must either grant or deny the motion as made-they cannot grant the dismissal, but do
so with prejudice, unless the Government consents. See United States v. B.G.G., 53 F.4th 1353,
1369 (11th Cir. 2022) (“[R]ule 48(a) does not give the district court the discretion to rewrite the
government’s dismissal motion from one without prejudice to one with prejudice.”); United States
v. Flotron, 17 Cr. 00220 (JAM), 2018 WL 940554, at *5 (D. Conn. Feb. 19, 2018) (denying
Government’s motion to dismiss without prejudice as contrary to public interest and requiring
Government to proceed to trial); see also In re United States, 345 F.3d 450, 453 (7th Cir. 2003)
(suggesting that courts might condition grant of Rule 48(a) motion on Government’s consent that
prejudice attach).
The assigned District Judge, the Honorable Dale E. Ho, appears likely to conduct a
searching inquiry in this case. Although Judge Ho is a recent appointee with little judicial track
record, he has resolved the motions in this case in lengthy written opinions that included research
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in ElectionsFor more than two years, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s lawyers did the job they were hired to do, defending him against a barrage of criminal charges with an aggressive strategy of confrontation and delay.But in working for Mr. Trump, they also used the tools of their trade — their legal briefs and courtroom hearings — to advance a political message that ultimately helped their client get back into the White House.Now, after fighting for Mr. Trump in case after case that they helped turn into a form of political theater, some of those lawyers are being rewarded again for their work. Mr. Trump has said he intends to nominate them to high-ranking posts in the Justice Department, which he has made clear he wants to operate as a legal arm of the White House rather than with the quasi-independence that has been the post-Watergate norm.After the president-elect’s announcement this week that he wants Matt Gaetz, the controversial former Florida congressman and a longtime ally, to be his attorney general, he named Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, two experienced former federal prosecutors who took the lead in defending Mr. Trump at his state trial in Manhattan and against two federal indictments, to fill the No. 2 and No. 3 positions in the department.A third lawyer, D. John Sauer, who was the Missouri solicitor general and oversaw Mr. Trump’s appellate battles, was chosen to represent the department in front of the Supreme Court as the U.S. solicitor general.Another lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., who defended several people in Mr. Trump’s orbit and helped in the process of vetting his vice-presidential pick, has also been mentioned for a top legal job, though it remains unclear if he will actually receive a role.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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