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.
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Prosecutors won convictions of four Oath Keepers on seditious conspiracy charges, while a separate jury convicted the rioter who put his feet on then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desk.
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Both the former and current presidents are under scrutiny now that a special counsel is investigating classified documents found at President Biden's home and former office.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed special counsel Robert Hur, who will take charge of an investigation of classified documents found at President Biden's home and private office.
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Prosecutors say five defendants "took aim at the heart of our democracy" on Jan. 6, 2021. Defendants' lawyers tell jurors their clients didn't plan the attack on the U.S. Capitol. -
Robert Hur is authorized to probe "possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records."
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The Senate failed to advance a bill that would have reduced one of the most persistent racial disparities in criminal justice: punishment for crack cocaine.(Story aired on ATC on Jan. 9, 2023.)
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A bill that would have erased long-standing racial disparities in federal drug crimes failed to clear the Senate, disappointing thousands of people in prison and their families.
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Two years ago, rioters who supported Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It has taken time to hold people accountable.
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President Biden has appointed dozens of judges with lifetime tenure for the federal bench, setting records on professional and racial diversity. Advocates press for more action in 2023.
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He has set records in his first two years for the sheer numbers of jurists, dozens of them women. He helped confirm 11 Black women to the appeals courts, more than all other presidents combined.
