- This topic is empty.
-
-
We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME
It turns out that a lot of people now doing federal prison time were just caught at the wrong time.Their cases should have been referred to the DOJ last spring. The odds of not being prosecuted would have been much better.
ProPublica reported last week that in the first days after Pam Bondi – who President Trump fired last week – became Attorney General last year, DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, “abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases,” according to Pro Publica.
The bulk of these cases were closed without prosecution (called “declinations”). They had been referred to DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations. While the DOJ routinely declines cases for a number of reasons, the sheer number – about a third of the total number of federal criminal cases brought in a given year – was unprecedented.DOJ brought 32,000 immigration cases through July 2025, nearly triple the number brought by the Biden administration. It pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime — from drug offenses to corruption — than new administrations in their first six months dating back 15 years.
ProPublica, Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration (March 31, 2026)
~ Thomas L. Root
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.