United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Counterterrorism is a program that's centrally managed from headquarters.

Unlike the Criminal Division-

Hmm

... where field offices have a lot of authority to basically run their criminal cases In the way they see fit, because criminal cases are distinctly kind of local.

So a few things that are different.

Um, so structurally there will now be a single dedicated division with i- its own Senate-confirmed leader, its own org chart, its, its own sections, um, and its own budget line, um, rather than coordinating some of these fraud investigations across, you know, criminal division, a tax division, individual attorney's offices.

Now there's kind of one hub there.

Another thing that's different than in the past, uh, folks may know, you know, the tax division is no more, and so the tax division's, what was formerly the criminal tax work there has been absorbed into the, uh, the fraud division's tax section.

And so that is the main focus as the fraud division describes its priorities.

And we might get into this, uh, but just to flag the actual rulemaking that defined What the new division's jurisdiction will be and how that compares to the existing divisions was a little different than just those priorities.

So the new fraud division, it looks like, has jurisdiction to go beyond the frame of just those five specific priorities, and really has a fair amount of overlapping jurisdiction with the existing criminal division.

And so it will be interesting to see how, going forward, Department of Justice and, you know, the individual investigators and prosecutors m- move cases through either the criminal division or the fraud division going forward.

Background This case concerns multiple Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by Plaintiff Democracy Defenders Fund to the Department of Justice regarding the files of Jeffrey Epstein and DOJ's handling thereof.

Relevant here are DDF's July 22, 2025 request to DOJ Criminal Division and its July 28, 2025 request to DOJ Crim and the Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and DDF's move for summary judgment on its request for expedited processing of these submissions.

The Court shall begin by detailing the media environment at the time DDF submitted its request.

as it's essential to determining whether DDF is entitled to expedited processing.

Even assuming the truth of her factual assertions, Maxwell's take on the legal implications is wrong.

As the Second Circuit recognized, the operative U.S. Attorney's Manual, now called the Justice Manual, stated unequivocally, "...no district or division shall make any agreement, including any agreement not to prosecute, which purports to bind any other district or division without the express written approval of the U.S. attorneys in each affected district and or the assistant attorney general of the criminal division." The EFTA records cited by Maxwell do not in any respect suggest that the U.S.

attorney for SDNY or the Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General in Washington approved, let alone provided express written approval for the NPA.

Third, Maxwell asserts that certain EFTA records suggest that investigative steps were taken in New York as part of the SDFL's 2005-2007 investigation into Epstein.

and that this causes the NPA to bind USAO-SDNY.

Even assuming the truth of her factual assertions, Maxwell's take on the legal implications is wrong.

As the Second Circuit recognized, the operative U.S. Attorney's Manual, now called the Justice Manual, stated unequivocally, "...no district or division shall make any agreement, including any agreement not to prosecute, which purports to bind any other district or division without the express written approval of the U.S. attorneys in each affected district and or the assistant attorney general of the criminal division." The EFTA records cited by Maxwell do not in any respect suggest that the U.S.

attorney for SDNY or the Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General in Washington approved, let alone provided express written approval for the NPA.

Third, Maxwell asserts that certain EFTA records suggest that investigative steps were taken in New York as part of the SDFL's 2005-2007 investigation into Epstein.

and that this causes the NPA to bind USAO-SDNY.

And he perpetrated the scheme against the victim financial institutions hundreds of times using hundreds of different synthetic identities.

Now, Assistant Attorney General A. Tyson Duva of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division noted that those who engage in fraud and deception in our elections process will be investigated and prosecuted.

After arriving in the U.S., Dimitri Shushelbein created sham companies to facilitate a multi-year financial fraud scheme.

He used those companies to commit identity theft, which allowed him to create synthetic or fake identities that appeared real and then were then used to submit over 100 false voter registrations.