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President Trump on pardoned nearly all the rioters charged in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, wiping away criminal accountability and going further than some of his allies in Congress had suggested, reports Roll Call. The sweeping proclamation commuted the prison sentences of 14 people convicted on more serious charges. He granted a “complete and unconditional pardon” to “all other individuals” convicted for their roles in the attack during the congressional process to count electoral votes. The attorney general should ensure all Jan. 6 defendants “who are currently held in prison are released immediately,” the proclamation states, and dismiss “all pending indictments against individuals for their conduct” related to the events. More than 1,500 people have faced charges for their roles in the attack on the Capitol, including more than 100 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or seriously injuring a police officer. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News this month that people who “peacefully protested” but were treated like gang members should be pardoned “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) noted that some Jan. 6 defendants walked “through an open door that the police opened” while there were also “violent protesters.” Defendants who battered the police and destroyed property need to be in prison, said Rutherford, a former sheriff in Florida. Rutherford said, “I’m a 41-year police officer. You attack a police officer, I want your ass going to jail.” Trump said his pardons end "a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation." The targets for commutations Monday included Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers group who was convicted in 2022 of seditious conspiracy for attempting to disrupt the Electoral College count and multiple other felonies. Also on the list was Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers. Meggs was similarly found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges. Rhodes, along with other defendants, was convicted following an eight-week trial. Rhodes was later sentenced to an 18-year prison term. Meggs was sentenced to a 12-year term. Trump commuted the sentences of several leaders of another group, the Proud Boys. “These pardons suggest that if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences,” said Alexis Loeb, a former federal prosecutor who personally supervised many riot cases, the New York Times reports. “They undermine — and are a blow to — the sacrifice of all the officers who put themselves in the face of harm to protect democracy on Jan. 6.” Trump’s actions were his boldest moves yet in seeking to recast his supporters — and himself — as the victims, not the perpetrators, of Jan. 6. By granting clemency to the members of a mob that used physical violence to stop the democratic process, Trump gave the imprimatur of the presidency to the rioters’ claims that they were not properly prosecuted criminal defendants, but rather unfairly persecuted political prisoners. The pardons and commutations unwound the largest single criminal inquiry the Justice Department has undertaken in its 155-year history. They wiped away all of the charges that had already been brought and the sentences already handed down while also stopping any new cases from moving forward. Investigators spent more than four years obtaining warrants for thousands of cellphones and Google accounts, scrolling through tens of thousands of hours of police body-camera and surveillance camera footage, and running down hundreds of thousands of tips from ordinary citizens. Their work resulted in charges being brought against almost 1,600 people. More than 600 of the defendants were accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers, many with weapons that included hockey sticks, firecrackers, crutches and broken wooden table legs.

Houston police evidence lockers are filled to the brim, including backpacks, ATMs, thousands of bicycles, notes from a nearly century-old homicide case and an infestation of rats that have been feasting on drugs. “We got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said, vowing to organize — and where feasible, discard — 1.2 million pieces of evidence held by the city, th e Washington Post reports. Although crowded evidence lockers are a problem police departments nationwide struggle with, legal experts warn that the urge to throw out old evidence should be tempered, because one never knows what could be useful for future investigations and as forensic technology advances. Allowing seized narcotics to pile up can also threaten the troves of more valuable evidence by attracting pests, said Peter Stout, who leads the Houston Forensic Science Center. “They’re edible, they’re tasty, they’re all kinds of things. You can’t store large quantities of drugs without expecting some of these things to happen,” Stout said, adding that the Houston police also have hired exterminators. “But this is difficult getting these rodents out of there. … They’re drug-addicted rats. They’re tough to deal with.” Whitmire will work with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to discard narcotics evidence obtained before 2015 that no longer has any value. “So much evidence is kept and stored that is no longer needed, that has no impact on the resolution of that charge, that conviction or even that innocence,” Whitmire said. Burning old drugs could incur costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it must be done in accordance with environmental guidelines, Police Chief J. Noe Diaz. The district attorney’s office said it had completed its first burn of 15,000 pounds of narcotics on Thursday. “It costs a lot of money to destroy illicit narcotics, and so the DA’s office is going to utilize funds that we control to help the city with this immediate problem,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said. The broader question of whether and when any piece of evidence should be discarded — and generally, how to store old evidence — is a tricky one. Overcrowded or pest-infested evidence rooms affect police departments across the nation, Stout said. In the past, fires in these storage facilities, which are crowded with flammable materials, have compromised evidence in Kansas City, Minneapolis and New York . When flames engulfed a police warehouse in Brooklyn in 2022 and ruined evidence in many unsolved cases, attorneys and city officials expressed concern about the department’s broader preservation rules. Richard Friedman, an expert on evidence and a law professor at the University of Michigan, advised against any rule that would automatically throw out evidence after a certain number of years, adding that there should be some consideration of the particular case. “It seems to me that as long as that person is alive, the evidence ought to be maintained,” he said.

President Trump reversed a Biden administration criminal justice policy Monday, opening the door to more people in federal custody being sent to private prisons. The Biden executive order directed the Justice Department not to renew contracts with private prison firms. In one of his first moves as president, Trump reversed Executive Order 14006, which had eliminated Justice Department contracts with “Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities," reports the Brennan Center for Justice. This reversal was something that the two largest corporations that manage prisons and detention centers — the GEO Group and CoreCivic — expected. In fact, on the GEO Group’s third quarter investor call the day after the 2024 presidential election, the company’s executive chairman and founder, George Zoley, said, “We kind of get the sense [that Trump] will reverse all of the Biden executive orders on Day One.” Another sign of an administration friendly to the industry: Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, lobbied for the GEO Group. The reversal affects contracts with the federal Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for housing the more than 150,000 people in its custody. The bureau began to rely on private prisons in the 1980s to house inmates with specialized needs and undocumented people. When Biden took office, about 14,000 in federal custody were housed at privately managed facilities. The reversal allows for new contracts between private prison corporations and the U.S. Marshals Service, which still uses private industry to house a significant portion of the more than 60,000 people under its supervision, despite the directive from Biden to terminate this relationship. This end run around the 2021 Biden executive order is partly due to intergovernmental services agreements in which corporations’ contract with counties, which then in turn contract with the Marshals Service. At the time of Biden’s directive, the agency raised concerns out of fears this population would be moved further from courthouses, increasing the time and money needed to transport them to and from court. Trump’s reversal does not affect contracts the federal government has with for-profit firms to run immigrant detention centers. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for housing undocumented individuals in a network of public and private facilities.

The Trump administration is designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations as part of a crackdown on drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border, President Trump said during his inauguration speech on Monday , Reason.com reports. Trump promised "to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gang criminal networks" through the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the government to round up foreigners who are citizens of a country that Congress has declared war on or that is engaged in an "invasion or predatory incursion." The terrorism designations are not a declaration of war. A Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation bans Americans—or anyone who wants to immigrate to the U.S. —from providing any kind of "material support" to a designated terrorist group and allows victims of terrorism to sue alleged FTO supporters for compensation. Meanwhile, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) designation allows the U.S. Treasury to seize a group's assets. Trump's executive order will apply both FTO and SDGT designations and will include non-Mexican gangs as well, such as El Salvador's MS-13 and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua. Unlike other U.S. sanctions, the FTO and SDGT lists don't include exemptions for free speech or humanitarian aid. While Americans are allowed to buy books from Cuba or ship food to North Korea despite the U.S. embargoes on those countries, the same doesn't apply to Al Qaeda. SDGT sanctions have been a headache for international charities working in Yemen under Houthi rule and Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Adding drug cartels to the FTO list could have similarly far-reaching consequences, both for Americans doing business south of the border and Mexicans trying to immigrate north. "Because the cartels are so closely intertwined with legitimate businesses (in mafioso-like protection rackets), many people are forced to pay them off or be killed. Under U.S. law, that could count as material support to terrorism," says attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the nonprofit American Immigration Council. Ironically, immigration hawks worry that a terrorist designation might make it easier for Mexicans to come to the United States as refugees, since they can claim they are fleeing terrorism. "If you designate them as terrorists, you've just created millions of more legal asylum seekers," Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R–TX) has said. "Now, look, are they obviously terrorists? Of course. They act like terrorists. But if you designate them that way, you make our immigration crisis much worse." Even though terrorism designations are not legally a declaration of war, they might make it politically easier to send U.S. troops to Mexico—which Trump's advisers have said he favors—without asking Congress.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was fatally shot Monday on a highway in northern Vermont south of the Canadian border. The death was confirmed by the FBI and Benjamine Huffman, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the Associa ted Press reports. The FBI said that a suspect in the shooting was killed and a second suspect was injured and taken into custody during the encounter on Interstate 91 in Coventry, about 20 miles from the Canadian border. Huffman said the death occurred “in the line of duty.” The identity of the agent, assigned to the U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector, was not released. The sector encompasses Vermont and parts of New York and New Hampshire. Huffman said the death would be “swiftly investigated.” “Every single day, our Border Patrol agents put themselves in harm’s way so that Americans and our homeland are safe and secure,” Huffman said. Coventry is close to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Newport Station, part of the Swanton Sector. The area includes 295 miles international boundary with Canada. In a joint statement, Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint sent condolences to the agent’s family and said Border Patrol agents “deserve our full support in terms of staffing, pay and working conditions.”

President Biden cast Monday's last-minute pardons of family members merely as an effort to shield them from the retribution of Donald Trump. In reality, his brother, entrepreneur Jim Biden, had already come under scrutiny from investigators in Biden’s own Justice Department, Politico reports. In addition to calls from Republicans in Congress to prosecute him for allegedly lying to congressional impeachment investigators, Jim Biden’s activities have been investigated in recent years in two federal criminal probes. Jim Biden, 75, has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Both investigations deal with a now-bankrupt hospital operator , Americore, that Jim Biden worked with in the years between his brother’s vice presidency and presidency. It is not clear where existing DOJ probes might have led before Monday’s pardons. Joe Biden’s 11th-hour issuance of a blanket pardon protects his brother not only from Trump’s revenge, but also from ordinary inquiries into his business activities. In one case, the Justice Department has for years been investigating schemes to defraud Medicare and other government health care programs that occurred in part at an Americore hospital in Pennsylvania. In a recording of a 2023 conversation , one of Jim Biden’s associates, Mississippi health care executive Keaton Langston, said he misled Justice Department investigators when he was questioned about some of Jim Biden’s contacts with Americore. Langston, then facing prosecution, said on the recording that he could have improved his own negotiating position with the government “If I’d have just told the truth about Jimmy Biden.”. Last May, Langston pleaded guilty to his role in a $51 million health care fraud. His sentencing is scheduled for June 26. Paul Fishman, a lawyer for Jim Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, who was also pardoned, said his clients had no criminal liability. “Jim and Sara Biden did not seek this pardon because they have never committed any crimes,” said Fishman.

It took just seconds for a routine traffic stop on a Texas highway to escalate into a fatal shooting that left 24-year-old Ashtian Barnes bleeding to death in the driver’s seat. What happened during those seconds and the minutes earlier in the April 2016 incident is central to a Supreme Court case being argued on Wednesday that could make it easier — or harder — to hold police officers accountable for the use of excessive force, NBC News reports. For Barnes’ mother, Janice Hughes, 55, who filed the civil rights lawsuit, the oral argument is the latest stop on a more than eight-year quest for justice on behalf of her only son, a Black man. Almost five years since the death of George Floyd, Hughes believes no progress has been made despite the mass protests and calls for social justice that followed. “I feel like at some point, somebody has to really take this seriously, because it continues to happen and all we get to do is rally, and ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and nothing changes,” Hughes said. “Nobody’s policing the police.” Hughes’ suit was dismissed by lower courts on the grounds that no excessive force was used. Courts made that assessment based only on the precise moment that force was used, based on a precedent adopted in parts of the U.S. but embraced by the Supreme Court. Hughes' lawyers are now asking the justices to reject the “moment of the threat doctrine,” which could lead to a ruling that makes clear courts should consider events leading up to the use of force when assessing an officer’s conduct. Barnes was driving a rented silver Toyota Corolla, in west Houston when the incident took place at 2:45 p.m. on April 28, 2016. He was on his way to pick up his girlfriend’s daughter from school. Roberto Felix Jr., a traffic enforcement officer with the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable’s Office, received a report that Barnes’ car had outstanding toll violations. He pulled the vehicle over to the left on the median side of the southbound tollway and approached the driver’s side. Barnes initially could not produce his license or proof of insurance and told Felix the documents might be in the trunk. Felix said he smelled marijuana, although no evidence of drugs was found in the car. Felix asked Barnes to exit the car. He said that almost as soon as the car door was opened, Barnes quickly put the key in the ignition, started the engine, and put the car in drive. The vehicle started to move forward. Felix stepped onto the door sill and shouted at Barnes not to move. He then fired his firearm twice, hitting Barnes in the torso, and the vehicle quickly stopped. Barnes died at the scene.

The Justice Department on Monday removed the four top officials from the agency that operates the U.S. immigration courts, reports the Washington Post. The firings are one of the first signs that President Trump and his allies are seeking immediate changes in how asylum claims are processed and want to deliver on promises to fire career staffers who administration officials believed could be obstacles. The four people fired were part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review. They had decades of experience in DOJ and operated the heavily backlogged administrative court that helps determine whether someone who violated immigration laws should be allowed to remain in the U.S. Among the people fired was Sheila McNulty, the chief immigration judge. By Monday evening, McNulty’s webpage explaining her background and job as chief judge had been removed from the Justice Department website. Also fired were Mary Cheng, acting director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review; Lauren Alder Reid, head of policy for the office; and Jill Anderson, the office’s general counsel. The immigration courts are severely backlogged, and the number of pending cases more than doubled to 3.5 million during the Biden administration. Homeland Security officials have said that immigrants can wait several years for a decision in their court cases. “Those are the people to fire if you think the bureaucracy slowed you down last time,” said one staffer on Capitol Hill. Also Monday, the Trump administration announced that James McHenry, a longtime immigration enforcement official at the Justice Department, would serve as the acting U.S. attorney general while nominee Pam Bondi awaits Senate confirmation. McHenry served during the Biden administration as the Justice Department’s chief administrative hearing officer.

What started as a typical December night for the Carr family in Georgia changed in an instant after two police officers showed up in their front yard. The officers were responding to a distress call in the area. As father Justin Carr went outside to speak with them, the family’s two dogs, Hank and Zeta, followed him out. Within seconds, one of the officers had shot Zeta in the head. Under Cobb County guidelines, “shooting a domesticated animal should be a last resort,” only if an animal becomes aggressive and only after measures like pepper spray, batons or tasers. Officers should “avoid shooting the animal in the head” or “in view of the public, especially children.” Cobb County Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer said that Zeta was "perceived as a potential threat." Incidents like this are common, an aspect of police violence known as canicide, reports Courthouse News Service.   Police kill about 10,000 pet dogs per year. There is no official national count. Cases of police shooting dogs have risen dramatically in recent years said Sherry Ramsey of the U.S. Humane Society. Almost all of the incidents could have been deescalated, she said. "The worst thing is, there are a lot of these cases that are just absolutely unnecessary," said Jim Crosby. A retired Florida cop, he now serves as director of the Canine Encounter Training program at the National Law Enforcement Center on Animal Abuse . He also designed the Law Enforcement Dog Encounter Training course , a program of the National Sheriffs Association. Sometimes, police-dog encounters can lead to human casualties. "Remember, there's not just the animals that are at risk here," Crosby said. He cited a 2015 Iowa incident in which an officer was responding to a domestic dispute. A couple was arguing in their front yard when their dog came running out of their house. The responding officer panicked, drew his weapon, slipped on the snow and ice and accidentally shot and killed the mother in front of her four-year-old son. Despite the stakes, most police departments do not require animal-encounter training. Only California, Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee and Texas have state laws mandating dog-encounter training for law enforcement.

The Laken Riley Act is roiling the Senate Democratic Conference, as senators believe their party bungled immigration and border security in 2024 and are unhappy about the swift passage of a bill they view as terrible policy. Democratic critics believe the rush to pass it is a political overreaction from Democratic colleagues scrambling to protect themselves.  Some Democratic senators are venting frustration about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) giving a green light to politically vulnerable colleagues to advance the bill without getting an ironclad guarantee that Democrats would have more opportunity to amend the legislation. Those Democratic lawmakers have likened the handling of the bill to a disorganized retreat and warn that it has sparked deep frustration in a caucus still stung from the loss of their majority in November, reports The Hill. “There is huge frustration that the bill didn’t go to committee on something so consequential,” fumed one Democratic senator who requested anonymity. “There is huge concern because we’re talking about the mandatory imprisonment based on an accusation without a person even being charged, let alone being convicted, and this applies to kids. It’s a sweeping assault on core principles, and it doesn’t even have a judicial review component.” Democrats facing competitive reelections in 2026 and who represent swing states, however, were eager to vote for the bill after President Trump and Republicans bashed their party all year over the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the U.S. without legal status and was previously arrested in New York and Georgia. The bill passed the Senate on Monday evening. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) joined fellow Democrats in venting frustration over not getting an opportunity to vote on more amendments. “It is bad policy,” he said of the bill that passed the Senate on Monday. “We had an amendment broadly supported by a big cross section of our caucus that would have fixed the bill.”

Paul Abbate, who as the FBI’s longtime deputy director had been expected to replace Director Christopher Wray on an acting basis, is retiring, reports the Associated Press . Abbate had been expected to run the FBI during Senate confirmation proceedings for Kash Patel, President Trump’s choice for director. It was not immediately clear who would fill that role. Abbate said that "with new leadership inbound, after nearly four years in the deputy role, I am departing the FBI today,” Abbate wrote. Abbate’s abrupt departure after 28 years with the FBI creates additional tumult for an agency that had already been preparing for upheaval if Patel is confirmed. A Trump loyalist, Patel has repeatedly criticized FBI leadership and decision-making and has alarmed Democrats with statements suggesting that he would be willing to use the FBI to exact retribution on Trump adversaries. Abbate held a variety of positions at the FBI, including head of the bureau’s Detroit and Washington, D.C., field offices and executive assistant director for the criminal, cyber, response and services branch. He was named deputy director, the No. 2 position responsible for the FBI’s investigative activities, in 2018. Wray was named by Trump during his first term and had been director for more than seven years. Wray announced his retirement last month, more than a week after Trump said he wanted Patel to be the director.