Tag: doj

DOJ: TikTok to pay $400M in settlement over suit alleging violation of children’s privacy law

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $400 million settlement with TikTok over a lawsuit alleging the company violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

As part of the agreement with TikTok, its developer ByteDance and related entities, the DOJ said in a Friday press release that the social media giant will pay $300 million immediately and the additional $100 million when certain conditions are met regarding a previous legal dispute with Musical.ly, TikTok’s predecessor.

“This settlement is a major victory for American children and parents,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr.

“The Department’s priority is ensuring that children are protected online and that companies entrusted with their personal information meet their legal obligations,” Woodward continued.

COPPA dictates that online services aimed at children must obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from users under 13 years old.

The suit alleging that TikTok violated this law was filed by the DOJ in 2024, though the Justice Department asserted that the social media company had experienced immense internal changes since that time.

“Since the Justice Department filed its complaint in 2024, TikTok has undergone significant changes to its ownership, management, compliance functions, and privacy practices,” the release stated.

“The company has implemented extensive measures designed to strengthen safeguards for younger users, improve age-related controls, and enhance parental oversight,” it continued.

In January of this year, TikTok announced that a majority American-owned joint venture was established to comply with President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order requiring the company’s divestiture in order to keep operating in the U.S.

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Accused Drug Trafficker Resumes Work As Sinaloa Governor Despite Being Wanted by USDOJ

An accused drug trafficker has resumed his post as governor of Sinaloa in Mexico, despite being a wanted fugitive of the U.S. Department of Justice. The move comes as tensions continue to rise between the U.S. Government and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been actively defending the politician.

On Friday morning, Ruben Rocha Moya announced that he was returning to work after several weeks on leave following the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement that he had been criminally indicted for his role in the Sinaloa Cartel. In a prepared statement shared on social media, Rocha Moya claimed that he had done what was needed of him and cooperated with Mexican authorities to prove his innocence.

As Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in April the indictment against Rocha Moya and nine of his closest political allies in the state. They are accused of drug conspiracy and weapons charges. At the time, rather than help with arrest and extradition, Sheinbaum publicly defended Rocha Moya, who is from the same political party — MORENA.

According to Sheinbaum, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Rocha Moya, and the public indictment was politically motivated by the U.S. far right as a way to damage the MORENA party. Sheinbaum’s move sparked tension with the U.S. government, which has been pushing Mexico to fight drug cartels.

In an apparent move to avoid questions over Rocha Moya’s return to power, Sheinbaum announced on Friday that she was not going to her daily news conference because she was sick with flu-like symptoms.

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DOJ Opens Path For Some To Restore Gun Rights

Attorney General Todd Blanche has kicked off a new federal path for certain people who lost their gun rights to ask for them back. The move gives applicants a formal way to argue that their circumstances have changed and that they no longer pose a threat to the public.

Under the final rule, the bar is not low. People seeking relief have to explain why they were prohibited in the first place and show that restoring those rights would not put anyone at risk. In other words, this is not a shortcut, and it is not meant for anyone still tied to dangerous behavior.

Blanche framed the policy as a basic constitutional correction. “The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and the federal government should not permanently deprive Americans of a constitutional right without regard to whether they pose a danger to public safety,” he said. “This rule establishes a rigorous, commonsense process that protects the public while giving deserving Americans a real path to restoration.”

The Justice Department said it will look at more than just the original prohibition. An applicant’s record, reputation and conduct after the disqualifying event will also matter, which gives the agency a wider lens for judging whether the person is truly fit to have those rights back.

There are still hard lines built into the rule. Violent felons, registered sex offenders, illegal immigrants and others who present an ongoing danger are presumed to be off-limits unless extraordinary circumstances exist. Even when relief is granted, it only affects federal firearms restrictions and does not wipe away any separate state-level limits.

That detail matters because the federal government is not the only player in the room. Someone who gets relief from Washington could still face restrictions under state law, which keeps the process narrower than a full clean slate.

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Clerk Calls On DOJ To Help Get Non-Citizens Off His Voter Rolls After Sec of State Whistleblower Claims MI SOS Benson is Automatically Registering Them To Vote

This evening, Hastings Charter Township Clerk David Olson released a video of himself pleading with the feds to get involved in Michigan’s elections, specifically to help him identify and remove non-citizens from his voter rolls. Mr. Olson is asking for help from the feds after a whistleblower from Jocelyn Benson’s Secretary of State’s office came forward and told Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf that non-citizens are being placed on the voter rolls at the Secretary of State level. Hastings Charter Twp. Clerk David Olson claims there is absolutely no way for local clerks to detect non-citizens placed on their voter rolls by the Secretary of State’s office. Hastings Charter Township is in Barry County, Michigan.

Clerk Olson explained what the whistleblower told the Barry County Sheriff: “When a non-citizen changes their address, programming automatically registers that citizen to vote. When the employee advised the supervisor, the supervisor said ‘That’s okay, because it will be caught downline by the clerks.” Olson challenged the supervisor’s statement, saying, “That is not correct! Once it’s in the qualified voter file, there’s no way for me to verify citizenship!” He continued, “Therefore, they [non-citizens] are automatically issued a ballot or an absentee ballot. So, since it is my responsibility to safeguard the voter rolls in my township, I’m asking if the federal government is interested to help verify my citizen’s [voter] roll?” Clerk Olson appears to welcome the opportunity to have his voter rolls cleared of non-citizens who have no right to vote in our elections. “I would be welcome to have them here,” he said, as he assured the integrity of his voter rolls would not be compromised. Olson explained, “I will safeguard my voter roll in the office but they are certainly welcome to come and compare against mine and this way will uphold law. I will definitely follow mine and it will be fair and honest.” The soft-spoken clerk ended with a simple, “Thank you.

When it comes to investigating and exposing voter fraud in Michigan, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf is arguably the most committed law enforcement official in the state.

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No Kidding… DOJ Says There’s ‘No Serious Dispute’ Fired FBI Chief Comey’s Seashell Post Could Be Read as Trump Threat

Of course, it was.

The Justice Department defended its criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey in court filings Tuesday, arguing there is “no serious dispute” that his Instagram photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47” could be understood as a threat against President Donald Trump, according to reports from the Associated Press and The Hill.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of North Carolina urged a judge not to dismiss the case, saying a jury — not the court — should decide whether the May 2025 post constituted a “true threat” against the president’s life, The Hill reported. Trump is the 47th president.

According to The Hill, the government’s filing stated:

“The issue presented is who should answer the ‘true threats’ question. … Comey seeks to take the question away from the jury before the government presents any evidence (or even allegations setting forth its theory of the case. No authority supports his attempt to shortcircuit these proceedings.”

The filings represent the government’s most detailed explanation to date of its indictment, the Associated Press reported. They came in response to defense motions seeking dismissal on grounds that include vindictive prosecution and that the post did not amount to a true threat.

The government also invoked Comey’s crime novel “FDR Drive,” released days after the post, to bolster its case, according to NBC News. The filings describe the book as centering on a “far-right wing media personality” whose foes are killed after “he singled out his enemies by name and suggested ‘something should be done’ about them.”

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DOJ Issues Grand Jury Subpoenas Whether “Other Dan Sullivan” Entered Race to CONFUSE VOTERS Against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan

The “other Dan Sullivan” controversy just exploded into a full-blown federal grand jury investigation.

The Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas as investigators examine whether Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., the Democrat-friendly Alaska candidate running against Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, entered the race to confuse voters and divert support from the incumbent.

The Department of Justice is examining whether the retired Petersburg teacher entered the race specifically to confuse voters, siphon support from the incumbent Republican, and boost Democrat Mary Peltola in Alaska’s ranked-choice system.

Potential charges under review include wire fraud and conspiracy to deprive Alaskans of a free and fair election process, a civil rights violation.

The subpoenas, first reported by NBC News and confirmed by Reuters, compel information from witnesses linked to Dan J. Sullivan’s operation.

The former teacher, who registered as a Republican only days before filing, has denied any intent to mislead voters. Critics call those denials laughable.

Dan J. Sullivan filed for the U.S. Senate seat just before the June deadline. Almost immediately, Republican officials and the National Republican Senatorial Committee flagged him as a “sham candidate.” Evidence piled up fast:

  • He had no prior Republican affiliation and switched parties right before launching.
  • He initially requested to appear on the ballot as “Dan S. Sullivan” — matching the incumbent’s middle initial — before correcting to “Dan J.”
  • His campaign website used a color scheme and design strikingly similar to Sen. Dan Sullivan’s.
  • He worked with a progressive consultant who had previously supported Democrat Mary Peltola.

Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher decertified him in mid-June, ruling the candidacy was “filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead” voters and compromise the ballot’s fairness.

State courts later reversed that decision, ruling election officials lacked authority to judge “good faith” beyond constitutional qualifications of age, citizenship, and residency. The Alaska Supreme Court upheld putting him back on the ballot.

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Mark Walter Probe Puts Wall Street’s Insurance-Private Credit Machine Under DoJ Scrutiny

An ongoing federal investigation into billionaire Mark Walter’s business empire is raising alarm bells about Wall Street’s use of insurance capital to finance private credit and other illiquid investments. 

Bloomberg reported that Walter’s TWG Global holding company said in a filing that it will wind down its exposure to affiliated businesses by up to $6.5 billion after the transactions drew scrutiny from federal investigators. This comes after the Department of Justice homed in on loans that should’ve been marked as affiliated transactions. 

Walter’s TWG Global holding company will buy up to $6.5 billion of affiliated assets from Delaware Life Insurance Co. in exchange for an equal amount of unaffiliated investments. Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co., another TWG-controlled insurer, separately reduced related-party transactions by $90 million.

The moves begin unwinding more than $20 billion of loans and investments that the insurers acknowledged should have been classified as affiliated transactions. 

“Tripping over these requirements can constitute fraud,” said Derek Reisfield, co-founder and former chairman of MarketWatch, as well as a former McKinsey consultant, who was quoted by The New York Post. 

Reisfield said that heavy exposure to businesses connected to an insurer’s owner poses a very high risk. 

“The risk is that concentrated loans to related parties go south, and the insurance companies and their policyholders can’t be made whole,” Reisfield said, adding, “It’s bad risk management and leaves the companies vulnerable.”

Last week, Walter agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at a record $12.5 billion valuation, and earlier this week, a report stated that he is mulling over selling his stake in Chelsea Football Club to the majority owner, Clearlake Capital. 

Insurance companies are allowed to do business with related parties, but such dealings must be disclosed and properly labeled to ensure that owners do not put their interests ahead of those of policyholders. 

The investigation into Walter’s empire is a major wake-up call about Wall Street’s use of insurance capital to finance private credit and other illiquid investments. 

Walter was one of the earliest adopters of the strategy of acquiring insurers and investing their long-term policyholder capital in higher-yielding private assets. A number of other asset managers, including Apollo, KKR, and Brookfield, have followed suit by building out insurance operations. Private-capital firms now manage more than $1 trillion of insurance assets.

“We have always acted in good faith, and insinuations that we have in any way attempted to circumvent our obligations are simply false,” a TWG spokesman told The Wall Street Journal. 

More problems: Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners, saw a financing entity tied to the investment firm report a sharp decline in second-quarter earnings, driven by the delayed recognition of advisory fees. The disclosure sent the entity’s term loan tumbling below 80 cents on the dollar.

To sum up, the affiliated transactions were not inherently illegal, provided they had regulatory approval. That appears to be where the process broke down in Walter’s case.

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Trump DOJ to Deploy RECORD 1,000 Federal Monitors to Polling Places Nationwide for Midterms

The Trump Justice Department is preparing to flood polling places across America with a record 1,000 federal monitors for the November midterm elections, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon announced this week.

Dhillon told Bloomberg the deployment will be “probably going to be a historic number for a Republican administration.”

The Civil Rights Division has long sent monitors to ensure compliance with federal voting laws, but the scale under President Trump’s second term marks a sharp escalation in the fight for clean elections.

“We just did it in the primary. We will do it to the tune of approximately 1,000 election monitors in the November election. This is something that DOJ does,” Dhillon said during a Monday interview on Bloomberg’s Balance of Power, according to Bloomberg Law.

The monitors will observe whether elections are conducted fairly, looking at language access issues, disability access barriers, and places “where there may be voter fraud issues.”

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Giffords Group Apoplectic That DOJ Didn’t Fight Demise of ‘Nearly 100 Years’ of Suppressor Gun Control

Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, was apoplectic Thursday morning over the Trump DOJ’s refusal to appeal a court decision that struck down the NFA suppressor regulation requirement.

Breitbart News reported that on August 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruled against National Firearms Act (NFA) registration requirements in Jensen v. ATF. This opened the door for plaintiffs in the case–including those in a consolidated case–to transfer suppressors and short barrel rifles and shotguns without complying with NFA registration requirements.

Caveat: Judge Hendrix allowed the government a seven-day window in which to appeal his ruling before allowing it to take effect. This meant that, barring appeal, it would take effect August 13, 2026. The DOJ did not appeal and, therefore, on the morning of August 13, Silencer Shop, one of the plaintiffs in the case, transferred a suppressor without registration.

Giffords was not happy.

Breitbart News noted that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly Handgun Control, Inc., went into full meltdown mode Thursday morning as well.  The Brady Campaign accused the DOJ of “[failing] to protect common-sense” gun controls for suppressors and short barrel rifles and shotguns.

They did not explain why rifles or shotguns with shorter barrels should be the subject of special gun controls nor why devices that are not firearms–i.e., suppressors, should be under any gun control at all.

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DOJ FIRES BACK After D.C. Council Demands Governors from 10 States to Pull National Guard From Nation’s Capital: “Your Politically Motivated Letter Is Impotent”

The radical, crime-loving leftists on the D.C. City Council just tried to pull a fast one, but the Department of Justice wasn’t having any of it.

In an OUTRAGEOUS and frankly SICK move, the D.C. City Council sent letters to 10 state governors demanding they pull their brave National Guard members out of our nation’s capital. After President Trump stepped in to save their failing, crime-ridden city, these local Democrats now want to kick out the very heroes keeping their streets safe!

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the streets of Washington D.C. had devolved into an absolute third-world war zone under local Democrat leadership before President Trump declared a national crime emergency in August 2025 and brought back LAW AND ORDER!

In a scorching letter, Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General unloaded on the Council, accusing them of feigning “ignorance of the historic public safety strides made in our Nation’s capital” while showing “callousness—instead of compassion and care—toward your constituents, who now live in a city with far less violence and fear thanks to the National Guard and the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.”

“Let me be clear, your council has no power to demand that governors remove their brave men and women from serving in uniform in our Nation’s capital. Your politically-motivated letter is impotent theatrics not worth the paper it’s written on, and D.C. is a much safer place no matter what you say. Because you refuse to speak the truth about the life-preserving work of the Task Force, the truth will speak for itself,” McDonald wrote in the letter.

McDonald didn’t stop there. He threw their own hypocrisy right in their faces, reminding them that just a couple of years ago, D.C. Councilmember Trayon White was literally begging for the National Guard to step in because the city was a “war zone.”

President Trump ordered the mobilization of the D.C. National Guard on August 11, 2025, directing the Defense Department to coordinate with governors on additional personnel considered necessary to restore law and order. The presidential memorandum stated that the deployment would continue until the president determined that order had been restored.

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