
Carrie Johnson
Carrie Johnson is a justice correspondent for the Washington Desk.
She covers a wide variety of stories about justice issues, law enforcement, and legal affairs for NPR's flagship programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as the newscasts and NPR.org.
Johnson has chronicled major challenges to the landmark voting rights law, a botched law enforcement operation targeting gun traffickers along the Southwest border, and the Obama administration's deadly drone program for suspected terrorists overseas.
Prior to coming to NPR in 2010, Johnson worked at the Washington Post for 10 years, where she closely observed the FBI, the Justice Department, and criminal trials of the former leaders of Enron, HealthSouth, and Tyco. Earlier in her career, she wrote about courts for the weekly publication Legal Times.
Her work has been honored with awards from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the Society for Professional Journalists, SABEW, and the National Juvenile Defender Center. She has been a finalist for the Loeb Award for financial journalism and for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for team coverage of the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
Johnson is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Benedictine University in Illinois.
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A veteran Justice Department lawyer has left the agency and is starting a new group to help advise and defend government lawyers under attack from the new administration.
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In little more than a week, the Trump administration has fired people who prosecuted the president and reassigned other career officials.
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Kash Patel is a frequent critic of the FBI who has spread conspiracy theories. He gets a Senate hearing Thursday to run the agency he wants to shake up.
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In termination letters sent to more than a dozen officials, acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote that he did not believe they "could be trusted to faithfully implement the President's agenda."
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On his first day in the White House, President Donald Trump gave commutations and pardons to every defendant charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Many assaulted police.
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Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who had been charged with or convicted of crimes associated with the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection that sought to illegally keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Trump also signed executive actions related to immigration, including declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, and reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy. This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo. The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.
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On the campaign trail, Trump regularly featured the stories of Jan. 6 defendants he labeled "hostages" and "patriots."
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Special counsel Jack Smith said he would have won a criminal conviction of President-elect Donald Trump if not for his election to a second term.
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The report on federal charges against Trump for election interference in 2020 offers special counsel Jack Smith a last chance to explain his decisions after dropping the case.
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Tim Heaphy was the lead investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee. He also looked into the violence in Charlottesville in 2017. He's got a new book out with insights into that experience.