By Steve Neavling

The Trump administration has shed more than 4,000 employees from some of the country’s top law enforcement agencies, according to records obtained by Reuters, even as it has promised a tougher approach to crime, Reuters reports.

The cuts hit several of the Justice Department’s most prominent agencies, including the FBI, DEA and ATF.

The records show FBI staffing has fallen by more than 7% since the 2024 fiscal year, a decline of about 2,600 employees. The DEA lost about 6% of its staff, while the ATF saw a steeper drop of about 14%. Other parts of the Justice Department were cut even more deeply, including the National Security Division, which lost nearly 38% of its workforce.

The losses have affected units responsible for some of the government’s most sensitive work, including terrorism, espionage and the illegal export of military technology. The National Security Division’s most recent budget request to Congress described “unprecedented personnel constraints” in the office handling those cases.

Adam Hickey, a former senior official in the division, said the loss of staff affects whether prosecutors can get ahead of threats or merely respond to the most urgent ones.

“It’s the difference between being proactive and entrepreneurial or purely reactive to the most obvious imperative of the day,” he said.

The records, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, offer one of the clearest pictures yet of how much federal law enforcement has shrunk since Trump began his second term in January 2025. Separate records cited by Reuters show departures accelerated after he returned to office, raising concerns that key public safety agencies are being weakened while the administration says it is prioritizing crime and terrorism.

Critics say the staffing losses are already changing how those agencies operate. The cuts, combined with a stronger focus on immigration enforcement, have pulled resources away from traditional law enforcement work.

“The administration talks a big game when it comes to crime and terrorism, but the fact that it’s hollowing out agencies tasked with addressing them shows that they don’t stand behind their words,” Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer who now leads Justice Connection, said.

By Steve Neavling

The FBI opened an inquiry last month into New York Times journalist Elizabeth Williamson after she reported that Director Kash Patel had used bureau personnel to provide security and transportation for his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, according to a person briefed on the matter, the newspaper wrote.

The inquiry has raised concerns inside the Justice Department, where some officials viewed it as retaliation against a journalist over routine reporting.

According to the person briefed on the matter, agents interviewed Wilkins, searched databases for information about Williamson and recommended moving forward to examine whether the reporter had violated federal stalking laws. But some Justice Department officials concluded there was no legal basis for the investigation and stopped it from advancing further.

In a statement to The New York Times, the FBI said that “while investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking,” the bureau is not pursuing a case. The episode drew alarm because it appeared to test whether ordinary reporting practices protected by the First Amendment could be treated as criminal conduct.

Williamson was reporting in a way that is standard for journalists, contacting people who knew Wilkins or had worked with her while seeking comment and background for the story. The article says Williamson spoke with Wilkins once by phone early in the reporting process and exchanged emails with her before publication. Williamson was never in Wilkins’s presence.

Joseph Kahn, executive editor of The Times, condemned the bureau’s actions.

“The F.B.I.’s attempt to criminalize routine reporting is a blatant violation of Elizabeth’s First Amendment rights and another attempt by this administration to prevent journalists from scrutinizing its actions,” Kahn said. “It’s alarming. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.”

By Steve Neavling

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing the longtime civil rights group of misleading donors by paying informants to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist organizations, USA Today reports.

FBI Director Kash Patel and acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the tactic was a betrayal of the group’s mission, saying donor money was used to support the very groups the SPLC claimed it was trying to dismantle.

At a press conference, Blanche said the SPLC “was not dismantling these groups, it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

The indictment alleges that, “Unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance.”

But the use of paid informants to penetrate extremist groups is hardly unusual, according to Javed Ali, a former senior counterterrorism official at the FBI and Department of Homeland Security who is now a professor at the University of Michigan. Ali said federal law enforcement has relied on that strategy “for decades, if not longer” and that the FBI has long paid sources to gather intelligence on racist and extremist organizations.

“There are, I would have to imagine, every day those kinds of operations,” Ali said.

Patel, however, said the SPLC crossed a line by soliciting donations under false pretenses.

“They used the fraudulently raised money, by lying to their donor network — thousands of Americans — to go ahead and actually pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups,” he said.

USA TODAY previously reported that paid sources included high-level figures inside extremist movements, among them David Gletty, who said he received “a lot of money” from the bureau while infiltrating militia groups, neo-Nazis and biker gangs.

“I was getting paid $1,000 a week at the beginning, then I went up to $2,000 a week after I did certain crazy stuff, but there were also bonuses,” Gletty said.

By Steve Neavling

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against The Atlantic, accusing the magazine and reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick of publishing false claims that his drinking and unexplained absences were jeopardizing his standing as head of the bureau, The New York Times reports.

The lawsuit stems from a Friday article headlined, “The FBI Director Is MIA,” which cited more than two dozen anonymous sources and said Patel’s conduct had “often alarmed officials at the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.” The story said Patel “has also earned a reputation for acting impulsively during high-stakes investigations.”

Patel denied the allegations in comments included in the article.

Patel’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, seeks $250 million in damages. It accuses The Atlantic of “publishing an article replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office.” The suit specifically disputes claims that Patel “drinks to the point of obvious intoxication” at private clubs in Washington and Las Vegas.

“Director Patel does not drink to excess at these establishments or anywhere else, and this has not, and has never been, a source of concern across the government,” the complaint said. Patel also alleged that The Atlantic moved ahead with publication “despite being expressly warned, hours before publication, that the central allegations were categorically false.” According to the suit, the FBI was given less than two hours to respond to 19 claims, and Patel’s lawyer had asked for more time and urged the magazine not to publish the story.

The White House also pushed back on the report before the lawsuit was filed.

“Director Patel remains a critical player on the administration’s law and order team,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Atlantic. After the suit was filed, a spokeswoman for the magazine said it stood by its reporting.

“We will vigorously defend The Atlantic and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit,” she said.

As a public figure, Patel faces a high bar in court and must prove not only that the claims were false, but that they were published with “actual malice.”

By Steve Neavling

The FBI said Monday it is leading an effort to determine whether there are any connections between the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and government workers in recent years, even as authorities say no link has been established, NBC News reports.

The move follows growing online speculation and comments from President Trump, who said last week the cases had come up in a meeting.

“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “Pretty serious stuff … hopefully a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it.”

The FBI said it would work with “the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers.” The House Oversight Committee also announced its own investigation Monday, seeking a briefing from the Defense Department, Energy Department, FBI and NASA on the “disappearance and death of individuals with access to sensitive U.S. scientific information.”

Much of the recent attention has focused on retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Neil McCasland, 68, who disappeared from his New Mexico home in February. According to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, McCasland left wearing hiking boots and appeared to have taken his wallet and a .38-caliber revolver, while leaving behind his phone and glasses. Soon after, speculation grew online that his disappearance may have been tied to his former work.

By Steve Neavling

The Justice Department has opened a criminal antitrust investigation into whether major meatpacking companies engaged in conduct that harmed consumers and ranchers, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The probe centers on whether large companies in the highly concentrated beef industry may have violated federal antitrust laws through practices such as price fixing, collusion, or bid rigging.

The investigation comes after President Trump called on federal authorities last year to examine pricing in the beef industry. In November, Trump accused large meatpackers of distorting the market, saying, “I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through illicit collusion, price fixing, and price manipulation.”

Trump also cast the issue as one affecting both ranchers and the nation’s food supply.

“We will always protect our American ranchers, and they are being blamed for what is being done by majority foreign-owned meat packers, who artificially inflate prices and jeopardize the security of our nation’s food supply,” he said.

The scrutiny comes as beef prices have climbed to record highs in grocery stores. Analysts have pointed to drought, rising costs, and a shrinking U.S. cattle herd as major factors, while tariffs on Brazilian beef imports have also tightened supply. At the same time, critics of the industry have raised concerns about consolidation, with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., saying, “Four meat packers control 85 percent of the meat processed in the U.S.”

Lawmakers are also pushing for broader changes. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats have proposed legislation that would force major meatpackers to split up their beef, pork, and poultry operations in an effort to increase competition.

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit Monday against The Atlantic magazine which reported Friday that he became known for “conspicuous inebriation and unexplained absences,” Reuters reports.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in D.C., states that magazine is ​free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but “they crossed the legal line” by publishing an article “replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy ​Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office,” Reuters reports.

Patel told Reuters: “The Atlantic’s story is a lie. They were given the truth before they published, and they chose to print falsehoods anyway.”

Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said in a statement to CNBC: “We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel.” ​

On Sunday, Patel said on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures: “We are not going to take this lying down,You want to attack my character? Come at me, bring it on. I’ll see you in court.”

He praised his performance as the FBI director and the results he says he’s gotten fighting crime.

“If the fake news mafia isn’t hitting you personally with baseless information in Washington, D.C. then you’re not doing your job, and it’s louder than ever because this FBI under President Trump’s brilliant leadership and backing the blue and backing law enforcement this FBI has the most prolific year in crime reduction in United States history.”

“If I’m not doing my job, if I’m not working, then how is it that the FBI delivered the safest America under president trump’s leadership in the history of our country?”

He indicated

By Steve Neavling

The FBI and Justice Department are moving quickly to rebuild their ranks after a wave of departures thinned out the workforce over the past year, prompting changes that critics say are weakening long-standing standards for hiring and promotion, the Associated Press reports.

The FBI has launched social media recruitment campaigns, shortened training for applicants from other federal agencies and loosened requirements for support staff who want to become agents. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is now allowing U.S. attorneys’ offices to hire prosecutors straight out of law school to help address staffing shortages around the country.

The changes come as the department struggles to recover from resignations and retirements tied in part to concerns about the Trump administration’s politicization of federal law enforcement, as well as the firing of lawyers, agents and other employees seen as insufficiently loyal to the president’s agenda. Some current and former agents also told AP that employees are being elevated into leadership jobs with less experience than would have traditionally been expected.

Critics say the moves risk eroding the professionalism of an institution responsible for everything from terrorism investigations to complex public corruption cases.

“It’s a sign of, among other things, the difficulty the department is having right now in keeping and recruiting people,” Greg Brower, a former U.S. attorney in Nevada who left the FBI in 2018 as its chief congressional liaison, said.

The FBI pushed back on that characterization, saying the agency is modernizing its hiring process, not lowering the bar.

“The Bureau holds high standards for potential and current employees, and there is a rigorous application and background process to join the FBI,” the agency said in a statement.

By Steve Neavling

ICE on Friday released overdue reports on the deaths of four detainees, disclosing new details months after missing a 90-day deadline set by Congress, NBC News reports.

The reports cover the deaths of Victor Manuel Diaz, Heber Sanchez Dominguez, Parady La and Luis Nunez Caceres, all of whom died earlier this year. Diaz and Dominguez had previously been described by ICE as presumed suicides. The newly released records add detail about the circumstances of their deaths, though the agency said the final determinations remain under investigation.

The delayed disclosures came just days after NBC News reported that ICE had failed to publish the reports within the time required by federal law, fueling new concerns about transparency as deaths in custody continue to rise. Earlier last week, ICE also reported another death in custody, bringing the total for the year to 17.

In that case, ICE said Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, a 27-year-old Cuban national, was found unresponsive in his cell at a federal detention center in Miami. He was pronounced dead after resuscitation efforts, and the agency said his death is considered a “presumed suicide,” with the official cause still under investigation.

ICE reported 33 detainee deaths in 2025, the highest annual total in more than two decades, after reporting 11 in 2024. As of early April, the agency was detaining more than 60,000 immigrants, a population that has fallen in recent months but remains far above levels seen before President Trump returned to office.