A new report from the Justice Department's watchdog points to several lapses in the government's witness protection program. The most significant are that U.S. Marshals at one point lost track of two known or suspected terrorists; and that some witnesses inadvertently were not placed on a no-fly list and flew using new identities. The FBI says there are no known current threats from any witnesses.

Attorney General Eric Holder faced critics in both parties at Tuesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing because his Justice Department has subpoenaed two months of phone logs from the Associated Press following a security leak in 2012.

In an NPR interview, Attorney General Eric Holder answers questions about the IRS's processing of tax-exemption applications, the Justice Department's subpoenas for reporters' phone records and other hot issues. Holder faces questions on Capitol Hill Wednesday during an oversight hearing.

Attorney General Eric Holder met reporters on Tuesday for the first time since reports surfaced of his Justice Department secretly seizing telephone logs from the homes and offices of Associated Press journalists. Holder said he himself had not been involved in that subpoena, but that it had been part of an investigation into a national security breach he called a threat to American lives. Audie Cornish talks to Carrie Johnson about the news conference and about her own interview with the attorney general.

The Associated Press is protesting what it calls a massive and unprecedented intrusion into its news gathering. The target of that wrath is the U.S. Justice Department, which secretly collected phone records for several AP reporters last year.

The Associated Press says the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of its journalists' telephone records as part of a secret government investigation.

The House Homeland Security Committee held its first hearing on the Boston Marathon bombing and aftermath on Thursday. Witnesses included the Boston police commissioner and former Sen. Joe Lieberman. Panel Chairman Mike McCaul has been highlighting intelligence failures.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ignacia Moreno's tenure spanned one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010. She oversaw a record civil penalty in the case.

Three women rescued in Cleveland after going missing a decade ago have beaten the odds. In most cases, Justice Department statistics say victims don't survive that kind of ordeal. FBI forensic experts and victim specialists will be meeting with the women and their families, to try to start the process of helping them return to the world.

A Justice Department study says some inmates who were approved for the early release program died before Washington bureaucrats signed off on it.

While the ATF is a fraction of the size of its sister agency, the FBI, it runs the show when it comes to tracing weapons at crime scenes and investigating bombs and arson. But the agency has been without a permanent director for almost seven years.

A Senate committee has held the fist public hearing on the use of drones. Lawmakers say they want to establish some ground rules for deadly drone strikes to prevent abuses.

Footage from privately owned surveillance cameras along the Boston Marathon route gave the FBI early clues about the bombing suspects. But the proliferation of cameras in America's big cities raises some tricky questions about the balance between security and privacy.

Carrie Johnson talks to Audie Cornish about the charges against Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was charged on Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction that killed three people and injured more than 200 at the Boston Marathon. He could be eligible for the death penalty.

Tom Perez has been one of the most aggressive advocates for civil rights in decades. He prosecuted a record number of hate crimes cases and got huge settlements from banks that overcharged minorities for home loans. But Republicans say he has questions to answer about a whistle-blower case.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Sri Srinavasan, who is nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. That key court has four vacancies, and no one has been confirmed since before President Obama took office.

Around the country, budget cuts are bringing some federal public defenders to the breaking point. "We can't not pay the rent, and ... everything else is personnel. We can't send a computer to court," says Washington, D.C., public defender A.J. Kramer.

Robert Mueller has been the U.S. government's indispensable man when it comes to national security. When his 10-year term as FBI director expired, the Obama administration asked Congress for an unprecedented two-year extension. But now, the clock is ticking on finding his successor.

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., is sometimes called the second most important court in the country, regularly delivering the final word on major environmental, labor and national security cases. But four of its 11 judge's slots are vacant, the most in the nation.

Republicans claim Thomas Perez struck a quid pro quo deal with Minnesota that may have cost the federal treasury as much as $180 million. Perez says he acted ethically.