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A Los Angeles federal prosecutor was fired at the behest of the White House, after lawyers for a fast-food executive he was prosecuting pushed officials to drop all charges against him. Adam Schleifer was terminated Friday in an email informing him that the dismissal was “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” reports the Los Angeles Times . Schleifer was fired via a “one line e-mail, and it came from a White House staff account," said one source. The firing seemed to be motivated by a case Schleifer was assigned involving Andrew Wiederhorn, former chief executive of the company that owns fast-food chains Fatburger and Johnny Rockets. Last May, Wiederhorn was indicted on charges of hiring taxable income by dispersing “shareholder loans” from the company to himself and his family. Wiederhorn allegedly used the funds for personal purposes including payments for private jet travel, vacations, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, other luxury automobiles, jewelry and a piano. Wiederhorn’s lawyers have aggressively pushed Justice Department officials to drop the case. The defense has attacked the legal theory of the case and alleged Schleifer was biased. Wiederhorn’s defense attorney, Nicola Hanna, said, “This is an unfortunate example of government overreach — and a case with no victims, no losses and no crimes” Schleifer is a registered Democrat who made unflattering remarks about Trump when he ran for an open congressional seat in New York’s 17th District in 2020. Schleifer started with the U.S. Attorney’s office in 2016. He prosecuted drug trafficking and fraud cases before quitting in 2019 for his congressional bid. He finished second in the Democratic primary and returned to his job as a federal prosecutor. Separately, the Trump administration fired U.S. Attorney Reagan Fondren in Memphis, Axios reports. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said that Joe Murphy would serve as interim U.S. Attorney and that she had "worked with President Trump to ensure that Memphis' chief federal prosecutor is competent, tough-on-crime, and pro-law enforcement."

When a protester was caught on video in January at a New York rally against Israel, only her eyes were visible between a mask and headscarf. Days later, photos of her entire face, along with her name and employer, were online. “Months of them hiding their faces went down the drain!” a technology company boasted, claiming its facial-recognition tool had identified the woman despite the coverings. The same software was used to review images taken during pro-Palestinian marches at colleges. A right-wing Jewish group said some people identified with the tool were on a list of names it submitted to President Trump’s administration, urging that they be deported in accordance with his call for the expulsion of foreign students who participated in “pro-jihadist” protests. The push to identify masked protesters using facial recognition and turn them in is blurring the line between public law enforcement and private groups, the Associated Press reports. The efforts have stirred anxiety among foreign students worried that activism could jeopardize their legal status. “It’s a very concerning practice. We don’t know who these individuals are or what they’re doing with this information,” said Abed Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Essentially the administration is outsourcing surveillance.” Concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war. “Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests. Ayoub is concerned that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong. Some groups pushing for deportations say their focus is on students whose actions go beyond marching in protests, to those taking over campus buildings and inciting violence against Jewish students. “If you’re here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest ... assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people’s death, why the heck did you come to this country?” said Eliyahu Hawila, a software engineer who built the tool to identify masked protesters and outed the woman at the January rally.

Speaking at the U.S. Capitol last week, Brian Mock, who was sentenced to 33 months in prison for crimes related to Jan. 6, 2021, detailed his painful experiences while incarcerated, including what he described as an excessive use of solitary confinement. He decried the justice system for inhumane prison conditions and called on President Trump to help people incarcerated in federal prison who could be eligible for early release. “This is the evolution of Jan. 6 activism post-pardon,” said Mock, 46, of Marshall, Minn.“Civil rights and humanitarian issues are what we’re here about. … So I’m here to stand up for prisoners.” Jan. 6 defendants are now embracing prison reform as their cause, the Washington Post reports. In Washington state, the wife of a Jan. 6 defendant started a nonprofit to help children with incarcerated parents. Another January 6 defendant is behind behind Stop Hate, an organization that supports Jan. 6 defendants and says that it wants Congress to address inmates' neglected medical needs, due process violations and changes to solitary confinement. At last month's Conservative Political Action Conference, J6ers talked about plans for launching new organizations, road-tripping to advocate for prison reform and filing lawsuits aimed at changing the criminal justice system. Mock hopes to forge an unlikely alliance with advocates on the left who say the justice system disproportionately locks up Black people. Mock asked Trump to commute the sentences of all federal prisoners who have served at least 50 percent of their sentence and are eligible for early release under the First Step Act, which shortens sentences for some offenders and expands job training and other programs. Mock, co-founder of a civil liberties division of the On Your Six Foundation, which supports veterans, announced his intent to file a class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice, claiming they are violating the requirements of the First Step Act. In December, the American Civil Liberties Union also sued the BOP, alleging that its failure to implement the law violated the rights of thousands of people who should be released from custody but were being illegally held.

A federal agency that touches the lives of people across the U.S. by funding the 988 crisis line, naloxone distribution and addiction treatment may be weakened and possibly eliminated in the proposed overhaul of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In Secretary Robert Kennedy plan, the $8 billion Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, would be absorbed into a new office, where its more than 700 staffers would co-exist with employees from other agencies responsible for chemical exposures and work-related injuries. Five agencies would be swallowed up under what will be called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, echoing Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again slogan, reports the Associated Press. Merging SAMHSA into a larger agency “will increase operational efficiency and assure programs are carried out because it will break down artificial divisions between similar programs,” said an HHS news release. “Millions of Americans who get mental health and substance use services depend on SAMHSA even if they have never heard the name of the agency,” said Brendan Saloner, an addiction researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Kennedy said in his confirmation hearings that he was addicted to heroin for 14 years and has been in recovery for 42 years. He called medication-assisted treatment such as Suboxone (buprenorphine) and methadone medically necessary, but considers the gold standard to be 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. SAMHSA was created by Congress in 1992, so closing it is illegal and raises questions about Kennedy’s commitment to treating addiction and mental health, said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University addiction researcher. “Burying the agency in an administrative blob with no clear purpose is not the way to highlight the problem or coordinate a response,” he said. Other experts said crippling SAMSHA could stall progress on overdose deaths. The agency regulates methadone clinics and pays for addiction prevention efforts in all 50 states. “There’s a reason why we have reduced overdose in this country, it’s because SAMHSA has been doing its job so well,” said Dr. Ruth Potee, medical director for seven methadone clinics in Massachusetts. “My jaw drops at this news.”

Public attention on crime and public safety has largely focused on fixing problems in cities, despite troubling safety challenges in rural and suburban areas as well.   One result of this fragmented approach has been a wave of policymaking centered on restoring “law and order” in cities, which has largely prioritized policing, penalties, and prisons as the primary deterrents to crime, the Brookings Institution says in a new report. At the state level, this includes efforts to exert state control over local police departments, curtail the powers of prosecutors, and roll back criminal justice reforms aimed at shrinking the size of the incarcerated population. Some cities are increasing prosecutions for low-level crimes, embracing :stop and frisk policing and enacting youth curfews. Brookings suggests that rather than siloing public safety and economic development efforts, governments should align the two objectives, particularly in “left-behind” communities, whether urban or rural.   A large body of evidence finds that approaches linking public safety efforts to those bolstering employment, education, After speaking withCook County, Il., jail inmates, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said,“What I heard dozens and dozens of times was a job for $12 or $13 dollars an hour…If we could employ people and give them a chance to heal, get their high school diplomas and grow, they will make that choice. They’re happy to make that choice.”   An Ohio police officer said, “Whether it’s an urban area with gangs or a rural area with trailer parks, crime comes down to depressed economics. Some people, especially single moms, are working five jobs and when their kids come home. Nobody’s there. It’s not because they don’t care, it’s because they can’t be there. But young people still want a family atmosphere. They’re looking for mentorship, people that care about them, and family. That’s what gangs provide." Brookings presents analysis from 10 states (Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin) and evidence-based recommendations to address the intersection between place, public safety, and the economy.     Crime is not limited to cities, but varies widely across cities, suburbs, and rural areas, with some suburbs and rural areas reporting higher per capita crime rates in recent years than urban peers.    The report said there is a strong relationship between place, economic opportunity, and public safety in cities, and a similar relationship across select suburban and rural areas.    Investments in youth, families, and neighborhood revitalization can mitigate crime and help break the cycle of violence in communities over the long run.    Bookings suggests ways in which state, regional, and local leaders can join forces to make a tangible difference for safety and economic growth in urban, suburban, and rural communities alike.

The Trump administration stopped funding a national database tracking domestic terrorism, hate crimes and school shootings in a sweeping round of cuts to violence prevention projects, reports the Washington Post . The cancellation involves nearly $20 million for 24 projects dating as far back as July 2021. The database, run by the University of Maryland and supported by $3 million from DHS disappeared Tuesday from the START consortium for terrorism research’s website. A DHS emai said “the scope of work performed under this award no longer effectuates Department priorities” without providing details. The data had showed there were nearly three violent events daily, killing nearly 400 people and injuring more than 700, wrote Michael Jensen, the project’s principal investigator and the research director at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror. Jensen said the cancellation comes at a time when the first two months of 2025 saw a 25 percent increase in terrorism and targeted violence incidents compared to the first two months of last year. Amy Cooter of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism , worries that the cuts to violence prevention efforts across the federal government will hamper the fight against domestic terrorism. “We’re seeing a real end of our ability to stay on top of extremist trends and threats from a governmental perspective,” Cooter said. A research project to avert school shootings, an evaluation of a method used to redirect online searches away from extremist content and a study focused on early detection and intervention of people planning terrorist attacks were among those to lose funding

A 69-year-old man slowly suffocated to death in a rural Colorado jail after his ribs were broken in an altercation with a deputy and he languished in a cell for a week without medical care, alleges a new lawsuit. Michael Burch’s 2023 death was ruled a homicide. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against the deputy who used a Taser on Burch and wrestled with him in a Huerfano County jail cell. District Attorney Henry Solano cited self-defense laws. An autopsy found six of Burch’s right ribs had broken and his right lung collapsed. He wasn’t taken to a hospital but instead was transferred to another cell where he was found dead seven days later, the Associated Press reports. “The simple act of breathing became so painful as Mr. Burch’s shattered ribs continued to pierce and tear through his organs that his body stopped using his right lung, which shrank to half the normal size,” lawyers for Burch’s estate said in the federal lawsuit. Defendants include the Huerfano County commissioners, sheriff’s office, individual sheriff’s officials, paramedics and the hospital they worked for, as well as nurses and the nonprofit company contracted to provide health care to inmates. The lawsuit accuses them of causing Burch’s fatal injuries and not doing anything to treat them, violating his constitutional rights. A family lawyer, Qusair Mohamedbhai, said Burch’s relationship with his children had been strained by his mental health problems, but they had hoped he would have a relationship with his grandchildren. Now they have nightmares about how painful their father’s final days must have been. “This is Gulag-type behavior that simply should not exist anywhere,” he said.

The Justice Department is investigating whether the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department violated the Second Amendment rights of residents through a pattern of long delays in issuing concealed carry permits. DOJ said the investigation was part of a larger push to protect gun rights. It added that it could open similar investigations in “any other states or localities that insist on unduly burdening, or effectively denying, the Second Amendment rights of their ordinary, law-abiding citizens.” The Supreme Court has upheld Second Amendment rights in recent cases. DOJ said some states “have resisted this recent pro-Second Amendment case law.” The department called California “a particularly egregious offender,” saying it had passed laws restricting the right to bear arms. It said some areas of California had also imposed excessive fees and lengthy wait times on concealed carry permits, the New York Times reports. A 2023 federal lawsuit by gun rights advocates claimed it had taken more than a year to obtain a concealed carry permit from the Los Angeles County Sheriff. Last year, a federal judge agreed that the Second Amendment rights of two individuals in the lawsuit had most likely been violated when the county made them wait 18 months before they received a decision. The Justice Department said it believed others had also experienced long delays in obtaining permits.. The Sheriff’s Department said it respected the Second Amendment and that it was committed to processing all concealed carry permits, but it added that it was facing a “staffing crisis” and had a backlog of cases. It said it had around 4,000 applications to process, with only 14 people to review them. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in announcing the investigation in Los Angeles, “and under my watch, the department will actively enforce the Second Amendment just like it actively enforces other fundamental constitutional rights.”

The federal judiciary launched a task force focused on ensuring the continued security and independence of the courts as President Trump and his allies ramp up their criticism of judges who block his agenda, Reuters reports. The Judicial Security and Independence Task Force's launch was detailed in a memo issued after calls by Republican lawmakers to limit the reach of judges' rulings, reduce the judiciary's funding, or impeach judges who have ruled against Trump's administration. Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, did not mention Trump in the memo sent to judges and court officials nationally. Conrad said the task force would be chaired by Baltimore-based U.S. District Judge James Bredar and "identify, analyze, and propose responses to ensure the continued security and independence of courts and judges. ...Through its efforts, it is hoped that the security of individual judges will be enhanced and that judicial independence will be assured.." Bredar, an appointee of former President Obama, is among the numerous judges hearing the 130-plus lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's actions. This month, in a lawsuit brought by 19 states under Democratic leadership and Washington, D.C., Bredar ordered the administration to reinstate 25,000 workers at 18 agencies who lost their jobs during Trump's purge of the federal workforce. Task force members include U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan, who chairs the judiciary's security committee, and U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington. Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is among six judges who have issued rulings against the administration. House Speaker Mike Johnson this week said congressional power over the judiciary covered its funding and the authority to eliminate entire district courts. The House is expected to take up a bill that would prevent district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions blocking policies.

Lawmakers on Thursday unveiled a pair of bipartisan bills — one that would give federal judges permission to allow cameras in their courtrooms and another that would require the Supreme Court to open up certain proceedings to television crews, Courthouse News reports. Cameras and video recording have long been prohibited in federal courts. Democrats and Republicans say their proposed legislation will shine light on the justice system and increase the public's confidence in the judiciary at every level. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is leading the charge on the two measures. He’s working with Democrats including Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. “The judicial branch has a massive impact on our daily lives and the lives of generations to come, yet few Americans get the chance to see our nation’s courts in action,” Grassley said. “Allowing cameras access to the federal and Supreme Courts would boost transparency and help Americans grow in confidence and understanding of the judiciary.” The Sunshine in the Courtroom Act would allow judges in U.S. district and appellate courts to permit photography, recording and broadcasting at their discretion. The proposed camera rules come with some exceptions. At the appellate level, a judge could refuse to allow video or photography during proceedings that would violate the due process rights of any of the parties involved. In cases where a panel of judges are presiding, those restrictions could be placed via majority vote. The legislation gives U.S. district judges similar bandwidth and requires trial courts to let witnesses choose to obscure their face or voice on broadcast. The bill would also ban media coverage of jurors. The U.S. Judicial Conference would develop mandatory guidelines for judges to follow when deciding whether to obscure certain “vulnerable witnesses” on video, such as victims of crime, minors, cooperating witnesses or undercover law enforcement officers. Grassley has for decades championed efforts to bring cameras into federal courts, sponsoring similar legislation since 2005.

Federal authorities arrested Henry Josue Villatoro Santos – a 24-year-old alleged leader of MS-13, the Mara Salvatrucha gang – on a gun charge Thursday in northern Virginia. Villatoro Santos is facing one felony charge. The Justice Department and other federal officials said Villatoro Santos is a Salvadoran national with unlawful status in the U.S, USA Today reports. Despite only a single charge, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi identified him as one of the three main leaders of MS-13 in the U.S., responsible for the East Coast. “America is safer today because one of the top domestic terrorists in MS-13 is off the streets,” she said. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said the arrest was made in Dale City, 28 miles south of Washington, D.C., in a coordinated effort with federal, Virginia and local law enforcement agencies. Youngkin blamed local leadership in northern Virginia, which leans Democratic, and the Biden administration for not arresting the alleged leader sooner. Federal prosecutors have charged Villatoro Santos with possessing a firearm by an alien. In an affidavit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deportation Officer Jason Klepec said officials executed a federal search warrant for Villatoro Santos at a home where his mother had reported a burglary in August. FBI agents had seen Villatoro Santos entering and exiting the residence in March. He is not legally present in the U.S.. Agents first tried to knock and announce their presence, then breached the front and back doors of the home, They found Villatoro Santos in an alcove leading to the garage, which agents later discovered was his room. He allegedly ducked behind a small wall, and officials said he didn’t comply with orders to leave the home. Agents used a stun grenade, and he eventually was pulled out of the residence. Villatoro Santos was taken into custody on an outstanding immigration warrant. When agents searched his room, they found a 9mm handgun, three other firearms, ammunition and two suppressors. Agents also found “indicia of MS-13 association” in his bedroom.