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More than a dozen senior lawyers — many with decades of experience working under presidents of both parties — have been reassigned, the current and former officials say. Some have resigned in frustration after they were moved to less desirable roles unrelated to their expertise, according to the sources. “It’s been a complete bloodbath,” said a senior Justice Department lawyer in the division who is not authorized to speak publicly... The managerial jobs vacated in recent weeks have not been filled, so the traditional work of the division has all but stopped.

MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera spoke to NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian on Friday about the latest moves made by Trump’s new attorney general at the Department of Justice.“One of the first things Pam Bondi did as attorney general she’d just sworn in this week was halt the Justice Department’s efforts to combat foreign political interference. What do we know about that?” Cabrera asked.“She disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, which was created in 2017 by the Trump administration in the wake of Russian election interference. And it’s been working furiously ever since to try to identify...

SNIPOn Sunday afternoon, the FBI Agents Association sent employees a notice that some agents had received an email from senior officials ordering them to respond to a “12-question survey" asking about their involvement in Jan. 6 cases, according to two people who received it. <>SNIP <p">Regarding one of the questions, the association recommended that agents respond with the following wording: "I have been told I am ‘required to respond’ to this survey, without being afforded appropriate time to research my answers, speak with others, speak with counsel or other representation." The association recommended that they also write, “To the best...

President Trump fired the head of the FBI Washington Field Office, according to NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian. David Sundberg is the highest ranking FBI official to be fired in Trump’s second term. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey during his first term. Sundberg oversaw the January 6 investigation and the investigation into the so-called DNC pipe bomber. According to NBC’s Ken Dilanian, the purge is much larger than originally reported and includes more than 20 heads of FBI Field Offices. NBC News reported: David Sundberg, the assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, was notified Thursday...

WASHINGTON — Lawyers and pro-democracy advocates are in the early stages of building a nationwide network of specialists aimed at defending and protecting people who may be targeted for retribution once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, according to multiple people involved in the effort. The sprawling initiative is intended to go far beyond legal assistance for those potentially subjected to criminal or civil investigations in a new Trump administration. Those working to create the infrastructure said that in addition to lawyers, they are recruiting accountants to help people who may find their taxes under audit, employment experts to advise those...

Multiple current and former senior Justice Department and FBI officials have begun reaching out to lawyers in anticipation of being criminally investigated by the Trump administration, according to three people with knowledge of their deliberations. Following Trump’s decisive election victory, many Justice Department officials and career staffers were already nervous about the possibility that they would be targeted by Trump loyalists, particularly members of Congress. But the selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a firebrand Trump ally who was the subject of a recent FBI investigation, to lead the department has sharply increased the sense of alarm, the sources said....

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz — a Florida congressman who was recently the target of an FBI investigation — to be the next attorney general of the United States sent shockwaves through the Justice Department on Wednesday. "OMG," said one current senior DOJ official. A second department official called the selection “truly stunning” and a third labeled it “insane.” Gaetz, who was the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without charges, has been a fierce Trump supporter and has regularly attacked both the Justice Department and the FBI, including calling for the bureau...

The step complies with longstanding Justice Department policy that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News. Justice Department officials have been evaluating how to wind down the two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office to comply with longstanding department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, two people familiar with the matter tell NBC News. The latest discussions stand in contrast with the pre-election legal posture of special counsel Jack Smith, who in recent weeks took significant steps in the election interference case against Trump without...

Former officials fear Trump would force out DOJ and FBI officials who defy him and replace them with loyalists. Chaos, division and paralysis could ensue. Since he entered the 2024 race, Donald Trump has called for the criminal prosecution of at least 16 rival politicians and 15 law enforcement, military and intelligence officials — according to an NBC News review of his public comments — not to mention workers at two federal public health agencies, two tech billionaires, Google and as any lawyers, campaign donors and political operatives who engage in what the former president has called “unscrupulous behavior” in...

Six leaders of Hamas, including the militant group's political head Yahya Sinwar, were charged with terrorism and other crimes in connection with the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday. Other members of the group charged in the indictment include Ismail Haniyeh; Mohammad al-Masri; Marwan Issa; Khaled Meshaal; and Ali Baraka. They were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals and other alleged crimes. In an affidavit included in the complaint, an FBI agent identified the defendants as leaders of the militant group.

The U.S. intelligence community believes the Kremlin will direct its propaganda efforts to support former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the election, an intelligence official indicated in a media call Monday. The call was held by the Foreign Malign Influence Center, one of the few arms of the U.S. government devoted to countering foreign propaganda campaigns.

Hunter Biden, the former degenerate crackhead and phallus-obsessed prostitute addict with a penchant for racial slurs, was "one of the strongest voices" urging President Joe Biden, 81, to stay in the race during a special family gathering at Camp David over the weekend. Video President Biden has "long leaned on" his 54-year-old baby boy for advice, but senior aides were understandably surprised when Hunter Biden joined them for meetings at the White House this week to discuss the fallout from the debate. For the time being at least, Joe Biden seems determined to take his son's advice and keep running...

New FBI data confirms previous indications that crime in the U.S. declined significantly in 2023, continuing a post-pandemic trend and belying widespread perceptions that crime is rising. The new fourth-quarter numbers showed a 13% decline in murder in 2023 from 2022, a 6% decline in reported violent crime and a 4% decline in reported property crime. That’s based on data from around 13,000 law enforcement agencies, policing about 82% of the U.S. population, that provided the FBI with quarterly data through December. “It suggests that when we get the final data in October, we will have seen likely the largest...

The Justice Department’s assertions this week that a longtime FBI informant was seeking to “spread misinformation” designed to hurt President Joe Biden after speaking to Russian intelligence operatives has put a new spotlight on an old debate: To what extent, if any, has the Russian government manufactured or amplified unproven allegations of corrupt Ukraine dealings by Joe and Hunter Biden? In a request to revoke his bail, prosecutors said that former informant Alexander Smirnov, charged last week with lying to the FBI in 2020 when he said Joe Biden had received a $5 million bribe, “is actively peddling new lies...

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” NBC News Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian argued that the signatories of the Hunter Biden laptop letter have “been proven correct” by the indictment of Alexander Smirnov because “we know now that Russian intelligence, at least according to the statements of this informant, bolstered somewhat by this indictment, were feeding him information, false information” even though the laptop’s contents “weren’t” made up and “Many of them have been now corroborated.” Dilanian stated, “[T]hose 51 former intelligence officials, they paid a steep price for signing that letter. The House Republicans conducted an investigation....

President Joe Biden lashed out at Robert Hur last week over one particular line in the special counsel's report on his handling of classified documents: that Biden "did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died." “How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters in an impromptu White House press conference. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.” But Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was...

A long-awaited report by special counsel Robert Hur will be made public in the coming days after a yearlong investigation into how classified documents found their way to President Joe Biden’s home and office, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the matter. The imminent release of a public report confirms that, as expected, no criminal charges will be filed. It is unclear to what extent the report will criticize Biden or aides regarding their handling of classified material. The Washington Post first reported that the Justice Department is set to release Hur's report shortly. Biden advisers have...

once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks. The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.

Dispatch from the Department of Pot-Meets-Kettle. On today's Morning Joe, MSNBC analyst Ken Dilanian hailed federal January 6 trial Judge Tanya Chutkan. Commenting on yesterday's hearing at which Chutkan set a trial date very close to that requested by the special counsel, Dilanian enthused: "It was a remarkable hearing. Where the sort of reality distortion field of the Trump defense in this case kind of came crashing on the shoals of this hard-nosed judge who just wasn't taking any nonsense."We got your "reality distortion field" right here, Dilanian! You're the guy who promoted the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory. Get the rest...

Antony Blinken represents neither the beginning nor the end of the info ops run to convince voters the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Revisiting the contemporaneous coverage of the laptop story in light of last week’s revelations about Blinken reveals the scandal extends far beyond the Biden campaign and involves government agents. Last week, news broke that a former top CIA official, Michael Morell, testified as part of a House Judiciary Committee investigation that Blinken, now-secretary of state and then-Biden campaign senior adviser, had contacted Morell to discuss the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story. Blinken and Morell...