Carrie Johnson

Between clashes with Congress on Operation Fast and Furious and U.S.-based trials for Sept. 11 suspects, the attorney general advanced civil rights priorities and reached several landmark settlements.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday. He says he will step down as soon as the Senate confirms his successor.

The nation's first black U.S. attorney general had a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threats, sentencing reforms and battles with congressional Republicans.

Twenty years ago today, former President Bill Clinton signed a massive crime-control bill that funded shelters for battered women and helped train police to investigate attacks. The anniversary of the law falls on a week when violence against women is front and center in the national conversation.

First, the Baltimore ...

In 1994, Congress passed the most significant crime-fighting legislation in a generation. Now, policymakers are dialing back Clinton's tough-on-crime policies.

The Justice Department investigation is likely to last for months and could result in a court-enforceable agreement to improve things like hiring and training of police in the Missouri city.

A federal judge has ruled that British Petroleum is guilty of gross negligence in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill. The decision means BP might be fined billions of dollars in penalties for its role.

Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

Associate Attorney General Tony West, the third in command at the U.S. Justice Department, is preparing to announce he will leave government for a job in the private sector, two sources familiar with the decision tell NPR.

In a statement, the Justice Department ...

The Obama administration is considering whether to broaden its air campaign against the extremist group the Islamic State by striking targets in Syria.

James Tomsheck was pushed out of his job as internal affairs chief for Customs and Border Protection in June. He warns the agency has become a paramilitary organization with little accountability.

The attorney general hugged community leaders, a highway patrol captain and the mother of Michael Brown during his visit, and got an update on the federal investigation into the teen's shooting.

Kelly McEvers talks to former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford about current U.S. policy in the region, and where it should be headed.

Authorities in the Missouri city are barring protesters and the media from recording their actions, arresting photographers and reporters and insisting that marchers walk instead of stay in one place.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visited the White House to brief President Obama on the latest federal response to unrest in Ferguson, Mo. FBI agents are set to finish canvassing fo...

Attorney General Eric Holder says federal investigators have already conducted interviews with eyewitnesses to the shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager in Ferguson, Mo., even as he pledged new assistance from the Justice Department to quell "extreme displays of force" and militarization by heavily armed local police there.

"It is ...

Inspectors general complain that they're being stiffed on the access they need to serve effectively. Four lawmakers are now demanding that the Obama administration comply with transparency requests.

It's all part of an effort to clear overcrowded prisons of non-violent drug offenders who would have received shorter sentences if they had been convicted today.

The U.S. Justice Department bashed the juvenile justice system in Shelby County, Tenn., in 2012. Now, Memphis courts are trying to find a way forward.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Labor Secretary Tom Perez are traveling to Montgomery County, Md., to highlight workforce training for inmates about to leave prisons and jails. ...

The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies will soon begin recording the interrogations they conduct. It's a reversal of decades of policy and, the Obama administration says, ...