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.
-
Justice Department officials speak out about a rise in homicides and shootings in many places across the country. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the federal government stands ready to help.
-
He allegedly wrote a graphic Craigslist post about killing three officials and harming law enforcement families. The case is the first brought by the Justice Department's election threats task force. -
The federal government has charged Stewart Rhodes and 10 others with seditious conspiracy in the most serious case to emerge from its investigation into the Capitol riot. -
In a speech delivered Wednesday, the attorney general said the Justice Department "will follow the facts wherever they lead. ...The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last." -
President Biden has gotten a diverse group of 40 federal judges confirmed in 2021, the most for a new president since the Reagan era. -
Matthew Greene, 34, has pleaded guilty in federal court to two criminal charges: conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, related to the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, 2021. -
In a rare reversal, the Justice Department said the prison system has discretion to allow people released to home confinement during the pandemic to remain free. -
The House voted to refer former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on criminal contempt of Congress charges. The Justice Department will now decide whether he could face criminal charges.
-
Advocates who want big changes to the criminal justice system are pressing the Biden administration. They want him to grant clemency for a few thousand people and make key personnel decisions. -
Criminal justice advocates are frustrated with inaction from the White House and Justice Department on clemency, reducing racial disparities in the justice system and improving prisons.
