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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Royce Lamberth, the retiring judge who led the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1995 to 2002, says he has no regrets when he talks about that court's business. In his view, another attack, in some form or other, is inevitable. -
President Obama will nominate Jim Comey to be the country's next FBI director on Friday. Comey is best-known for raising alarms about a secret surveillance program during the Bush years. That issue has taken on new resonance after the latest revelations of government surveillance. -
NPR has learned that the Obama administration, under pressure to lift a cloak of secrecy, is considering whether to declassify a court order that gives the National Security Agency the power to gather phone call record information on millions of Americans.
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The attorney general heads to the Senate on Thursday, where lawmakers are sure to demand answers. But being in the center of the storm is nothing new for Holder. Over four years in office, he has been a lightning rod for the president's fiercest critics. -
The lawyer for a former State Department contractor accused of leaking top-secret data to Fox News says that intelligence agencies are calling too many harmless documents "classified." In federal court, attorney Abbe D. Lowell cited an example: a note between the defendant and his child.
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Prosecutors say the soldier downloaded thousands of diplomatic cables and war field reports and sent them to the website WikiLeaks. His trial, which begins Monday, highlights the U.S. government's aggressive campaign to keep secrets. -
Two sources familiar with the search for a new director of the agency tell NPR that James B. Comey is in line to succeed outgoing chief Robert Mueller. Comey was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department in the George W. Bush administration. -
GOP Sen. Charles Grassley has floated legislation that would cut three seats from the important D.C. Circuit appeals court — just as President Obama prepares to announce his nominees for those jobs. The court is now evenly balanced with four appointees each from Republican and Democratic presidents. -
A court filing says a deal could be announced by mid-June, bringing an end to a costly and embarrassing episode that first came to light when a Gallup insider blew the whistle.
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Federal prisoners can request compassionate release if they are terminally ill, but a recent investigation found that many die while their requests drift through the system. Now, prison leaders say they will simplify the approval process and start tracking requests electronically.
