Trump’s new Justice Department leadership orders freeze on civil rights cases

Trump's Justice Department freezes civil rights litigation, may reconsider police reform agreements, signaling major changes under new leadership.

President Donald Trump’s new Justice Department leadership has put a freeze on civil rights litigation and suggested it may reconsider police reform agreements negotiated by the Biden administration, according to two memos obtained Wednesday (January 22, 2025) by The Associated Press.

Attorneys in the department’s Civil Rights Division were ordered not to file any new complaints, amicus briefs or other certain court papers “until further notice,” one of the memos said.

Another memo directed attorneys to notify leadership of any settlements or consent decrees — court-enforceable agreements to reform police agencies — that were finalized by the Biden administration within the last 90 days.

It said the new administration “may wish to reconsider” such agreements, raising the prospect that it may abandon two consent decrees finalised in the final weeks of the Biden administration in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Those agreements, reached after investigations found police engaged in civil rights violations, still need to be approved by a judge. They were among 12 investigations into law enforcement agencies launched by the Civil Rights Division under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The Minneapolis City Council earlier this month approved the agreement to overhaul the city’s police training and use-of-force policies in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

The Justice Department announced last month it had reached the agreement with Louisville to reform the city’s police force after an investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020 and police treatment of protesters.