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 Trump administration's effort to reshape the Justice Department's civil rights division and its mission, once the crown jewel of the department, has prompted a mass exodus of attorneys.
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President Trump said he is appointing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be acting U.S. attorney in Washington DC. This is after the president pulled his controversial first pick for the job, Ed Martin.
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Critics warn that despite President Trump's call to end weaponization of the DOJ, the department has become more politicized in the president's first three months back in office.
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The DOJ is charging a circuit judge of obstructing ICE and concealing a person without legal status, in a potential escalation of clashes between the executive and judiciary over immigration.
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NPR's Ryan Lucas speaks about his beat covering the federal judiciary during the tumult of the second Trump administration.
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The ripple effects of Trump's actions targeting specific law firms already are being felt beyond boardrooms, in declining interest in pro bono work for causes that are unpopular with the president.
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President Trump's top intelligence officials return to Capitol Hill for another hearing where they are likely to face questions about sensitive military information shared with a journalist in a Signal chat.
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Lawmakers were split by party at a hearing Tuesday over how much attention they paid to sharing of sensitive military information with a journalist on Signal.
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President Trump has signed three orders punishing law firms that have represented people or causes unpopular with the president.
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President Trump is going to the Department of Justice to deliver a speech about law and order. It is rare for a president to physically visit the agency meant to independently uphold the rule of law.
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The DOJ will only enforce in "extraordinary circumstances" violations of the law that prohibits interfering with people providing or receiving reproductive health care services.
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President Trump has named right-wing podcast host Dan Bongino as the FBI's deputy director. That means Bongino will be the number two official behind the recently confirmed director Kash Patel.