The Justice Department ordered an immediate halt to all new civil rights cases or investigations — and signaled it may back away from Biden-era agreements with police departments that have engaged in discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to employees on Wednesday.
These actions, while expected, represent an abrupt shift for a department that for the past four years has aggressively investigated high-profile cases of violence and systemic discrimination in local law enforcement and state agencies.
The first of two short memos sent by Chad Mizell, the department’s chief of staff, ordered a “litigation freeze” in the department’s civil rights division to decide whether Trump appointees wanted to “bring any new cases,” according to a screenshot of the document seen by the New York Times. Times.
Mr. Mizell also barred lawyers working for the department from filing “requests for intervention, agreed-upon pretrial detention, amicus briefs or statements of interest,” unless they receive approval from senior Trump appointees. It’s the clearest sign yet that the hardline conservatives taking over the ministry intend to quickly jettison the previous administration’s liberal agenda.
Perhaps most significantly, the second memo ordered a similar freeze on department activity involving so-called consent decrees — agreements negotiated with local governments meant to address flawed police practices, or bias based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disabilities.
“The new administration may want to revisit the settlements and consent decrees that were negotiated and approved during the previous administration,” wrote Mr. Mizell, an ally of Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior policy adviser.
The matter may invalidate agreements recently reached with Louisville, Kentucky, After the killing of Breonna Taylor by police, W With Minneapolis In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, according to former administration officials. Neither of them received final approval by a federal judge. They added that other voluntary agreements may be at risk.
Mr. Trump, who has moved quickly to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, accused the Justice Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of obstructing police, although all of the law enforcement agencies investigated admitted error and many more. It adopted reforms.
In 2020, during his first term, Trump signed an executive order requiring police departments to ban the use of chokeholds after Mr. Floyd died while suffocating.
President Harmeet K. chose Dillon, a conservative California lawyer, was appointed to run the Civil Rights Division, one of the most important and politically polarizing units of the department. Ms. Dillon, who would be in charge of voting rights issues if confirmed by the Senate, has been a prominent figure in the state’s Republican Party, where she has supported Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
