Justice Department

The Justice Department has authorized federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against an MS-13 gang leader charged in connection to seven slayings — including the gruesome baseball bat bludgeoning of two teenage girls, according to court papers.

Judge Merrick Garland is a candidate to become Attorney General for President-elect Joe Biden next year, NPR reported Friday. 

A former Army Green Beret pleaded guilty this week to conspiring with Russian intelligence sources dating as far back as the 1990s.

The Department of Justice has gotten involved in the ongoing legal troubles of former “Tiger King” star Jeff Lowe with a new civil complaint filed Thursday alleging repeated violations of the Endangered Species and Animal Welfare acts, according to authorities.

U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe remains “full steam ahead,” a source familiar with his progress told Fox News, despite concerns from Republicans and allies of President Trump that the probe has been dormant following Election Day.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who Fox News is told is being considered to serve as attorney general in the upcoming Biden administration, once said that illegal immigration should be decriminalized -- one of a number of radical stances he has taken on the subject.

Two lawyers representing Lisa Montgomery, the first woman to face the federal death penalty in nearly 70 years, have moved to delay her execution because they contracted the coronavirus while working on her case, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The FBI wanted to arrest Jeffrey Epstein in 2007 in the U.S. Virgin Islands while he was judging a beauty contest but it did not -- in a missed opportunity the bureau's supervisory special agent was "extremely upset" about.

The Justice Department said Thursday that U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta exercised “poor judgment" while brokering a deal to end a federal probe into billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but did not find any evidence of professional misconduct on Acosta's part. 

More than 1,000 advocates, including current and former prosecutors and anti-trafficking organizations, are asking President Trump to spare the life of the only woman currently on death row in the U.S. who was convicted of strangling a pregnant woman and cutting out the baby to raise as her own.