Ryan Lucas
Ryan Lucas covers the Justice Department for NPR.
He focuses on the national security side of the Justice beat, including counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Lucas also covers a host of other justice issues, including the Trump administration's "tough-on-crime" agenda and anti-trust enforcement.
Before joining NPR, Lucas worked for a decade as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press based in Poland, Egypt and Lebanon. In Poland, he covered the fallout from the revelations about secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. In the Middle East, he reported on the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and the turmoil that followed. He also covered the Libyan civil war, the Syrian conflict and the rise of the Islamic State. He reported from Iraq during the U.S. occupation and later during the Islamic State takeover of Mosul in 2014.
He also covered intelligence and national security for Congressional Quarterly.
Lucas earned a bachelor's degree from The College of William and Mary, and a master's degree from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
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The disconnect between Emil Bove's aggressive stance at the time to hold rioters accountable — and his current hostility toward the Jan. 6 probe — has troubled some former colleagues. -
The DOJ is moving to implement President Trump's agenda for the agency, including reevaluating past criminal cases against him.
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Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have both argued the Justice Department under Biden unfairly targeted conservatives, most notably Trump himself. -
A senior DOJ official in a memo said only agents "who acted with corrupt or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from Department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI" should be concerned. -
The details on FBI employees comes in response to a Justice Department memo last week, asking for names of all current and former FBI personnel who worked on Jan. 6 cases or the prosecution of Hamas leaders. -
Kash Patel, President Trump's pick to run the FBI, answered questions Thursday in a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. -
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." -
The judge said it was "reasonable" the Justice Department interpreted Trump's Jan. 6 commutations to cover the defendants' prison sentences and wipe away their terms of supervised release. -
The full implications of designating the cartels as terrorist organizations will depend, in large part, to how the administration follows through. -
Rhodes was convicted by a federal jury of sedition conspiracy in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. President Trump pardoned him on Monday.
