When DOJ Won’t Review Use of Force
Civil-rights oversight is being treated like a political favor, not a duty.
📌 NOTE FOR NEW READERS:
The 50501 Movement organizes peaceful action across all 50 states to defend democracy. Our publication is thousands of subscribers strong and growing. If this resonates with you, hit subscribe!
TL;DR
The Trump administration is narrowing accountability while expanding enforcement power. DOJ leadership declined to open a civil-rights investigation connected to the Minneapolis ICE shooting, and senior lawyers inside DOJ’s Civil Rights Division resigned after being sidelined from the case.
Trump’s DOJ Is Shrinking Civil Rights Accountability
In functioning democracies, accountability is not a mood or quick emotion. It is a set of processes designed to outlast personalities.
One of those processes is the Department of Justice’s civil-rights oversight: the mechanism meant to examine whether the government violated constitutional rights when law enforcement uses force.
That is precisely the mechanism the Trump administration has chosen to constrict.
The Associated Press reports that DOJ leadership said there was “no basis” to open a civil-rights investigation connected to the Minneapolis case while the FBI continues its investigation. What is striking is not that DOJ can exercise discretion, it can, but that the administration is signaling, publicly, that civil-rights review is something it will grant only when leadership finds it convenient.
And then something rare happened: people inside the system refused to normalize it.
Reuters reports that four senior supervisors in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division resigned after being told they would be sidelined from the Minnesota probe. The Guardian reports resignations as protest against the refusal to open civil-rights oversight in the first place.
The administration will frame this as staffing noise. It isn’t.
When career civil-rights supervisors leave at the same moment DOJ declines civil-rights review, the story is not personality.
Power without oversight breeds volatility
When an administration narrows oversight, pushes enforcement forward, and then strips away independent review mechanisms, it turns accountability into a political decision rather than a civic obligation.
That is what we are watching now.
Not a single dramatic “collapse.”
A series of choices that degrade guardrails and make correction harder later.
What we can do legally, effectively, and in a way that holds up
1) Call Congress and demand oversight
Capital Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Find your member here: Congress.gov Find Your Member
Keep Calling the Capital Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
2) Share credible “Know Your Rights” resources
ACLU Know Your Rights (speech, protest, ICE encounters)
ILRC Red Cards (printable “I choose to remain silent / I do not consent to a search”)
NILC (National Immigration Law Center) guidance and updates
National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) resources and legal information
3) Keep the record clean
Do not treat AI-touched images as evidence. And don’t do the administration’s work for it by amplifying anything that makes lawful accountability harder to sustain.
What wins in the long run is credibility because credibility is what compels institutions, courts, and legislators to act.
Join Us For Our Next Nationwide Action: January 20th | The Free America Walk Out
On January 20, 2026 at 2 PM local time, we walk out of work, school, and commerce as a visible refusal to normalize the construction of a coercive state.
Read/listen more about how walkouts are different from a protest and how they can help make a bigger impact here: What Walkouts Do, Why They Work, and How to Join Safely
Do this today (2 minutes):
Commit here: FreeAmeri.ca
Calendar it: Jan 20, 2026, 2 PM local
Text two people: “Jan 20, 2 PM local. Free America Walk Out. I’m going. Will you?”
Please share this to help us get the word out:
Our freedoms are being trampled by out of control know nothings. You'll grow tired counting the incompetent people now controlling our lives. Their actions are forcing so many lawsuits the courts will be tied up for years. Never in the history of America have we faced such an onslaught from the very entity meant to protect us. I cringe every day watching a new abomination occur.
The d.o.j. ignored my false claims act. And civil rights suit. I'm dead to rights on. They opened it 8 days after receiving it sealed.
They then delayed informing me. The d.o.j. is as bad as ice now.