The Justice Department has ordered an immediate halt to all new civil rights cases or investigations — and signaled that it might back out of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to staff on Wednesday. The actions, while expected, represent an abrupt about-face for a department that had for the past four years aggressively investigated high-profile instances of violence and systemic discrimination in local law enforcement and government agencies, the New York Times reports. The first of two short memos sent by Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff at the department, ordered a “litigation freeze” at the department’s Civil Rights Division to decide whether Trump appointees want “to initiate any new cases,” according to a screenshot of the document viewed by The New York Times. Mizelle also barred lawyers working for the division from filing “motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs or statements of interest,” unless they receive the approval of senior Trump appointees.
A second memo ordered a similar freeze on department activity involving so-called consent decrees — agreements hashed out with local governments intended to address flawed police practices, or bias based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities. “The new administration may wish to reconsider settlements and consent decrees negotiated and approved during the prior administration,” wrote Mizelle, an ally of Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser. The order could scuttle agreements recently reached with Louisville, Ky., after the police killing of Breonna Taylor, and with Minneapolis in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, according to former administration officials. Neither has received final approval by a federal judge. Other voluntary agreements could also be in jeopardy, they said.
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