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Jeff Sessions Is the Canary in the Coal Mine

It took well over a century for the office of the attorney general to accrue power and independence. Trump could blow that all up.
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How the Fight Over Civil Forfeiture Lays Bare the Contradictions in Modern Conservatism

The brewing conflict between originalism and law-and-order politics.
Franklin Roosevelt in front of news microphones.

The Rise and Fall of the Word 'Monopoly' in American Life

For several decades, the term was a fixture of newspaper headlines and campaign speeches. Then something changed.

I Found Prison Data Going Back to 1880. This is How Mass Incarceration Looks In Context

America put drastically more people in prison over the past few decades than at any time in the nation's history.
Malcolm X.

Malcolm X Assassination: 50 Years On, Mystery Still Clouds Details of the Case

Despite Freedom of Information requests throughout the years, New York still will not release records to the public.

The U.S. Confiscated Half a Billion Dollars in Private Property During WWI

America's home front was the site of internment, deportation, and vast property seizure.
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Wrongly Accused of Terrorism: The Sleeper Cell That Wasn't

Six days after 9/11, the FBI raided a Detroit sleeper cell. But, despite a celebrated conviction, there was one problem — they’d gotten it wrong.
Angry mob in Manhattan
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The Day Wall Street Exploded

On the spectacular act of terrorism that took place in Manhattan a century ago.
Wanto Company storefront with a sign that reads "I am an American."

Alien Enemies

The torturers have been revising, the gestapos have been busy, and the prisons have been full for generations.
Woodrow Wilson delivering his second innaugural address in front of a large crowd.

America Was at Its Trumpiest 100 Years Ago. Here’s How to Prevent the Worst.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.
Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.
Herbert O. Yardley and diplomatic codes from the Black Chamber.

The Spy Who Exposed the Secrets of the Black Chamber

In 1931, Herbert O. Yardley published a tell-all book about his experiences leading a covert government agency called the Cipher Bureau.
A collage of a gavel, a comb, and a gloved hand in front of a sexual assault examination form.

The Frustrated Promise of the Rape Kit

Standardized forensic exams are a useful tool for sexual-violence investigations—or they would be if police departments consistently tested their findings.
Kash Patel photographed in profile.

How Would Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover?

If Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I. gets confirmed, the Bureau could be politicized in ways that even its notorious first director would have rejected.

How American Intelligence Was Born in the Trenches of World War I

The Great War forced the US to create a modern spying and analysis apparatus.
Spiro T. Agnew button.

The Wildest Month of the US Presidency, Part I

The Spiro Agnew Edition.
A young J. Edgar Hoover sitting at a desk.

When Hoover Met Palmer: Domestic Surveillance and Radical Suppression in the Early Days of the FBI

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.
Recently freed African Americans receive rations.

The Origins of the Socialist Slur

Reconstruction-era opponents of racial equality popularized the charge that protecting civil rights would amount to the end of capitalism.
Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone photographed with a book.

The Supreme Court's World War II Battles

Cliff Sloan’s new book explains how the Franklin Roosevelt-shaped Court wrestled with individual rights as the nation fought to save itself and the world.
Former President Donald Trump with his attorneys inside the courtroom during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court on April 4, 2023.

A Brief History of the Ku Klux Klan Acts

These 1870s laws to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, now being used against Trump.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden addresses an audience at a conference in Lisbon, Portugal, 2019.

Ten Years Ago, Edward Snowden Blew the Whistle on the US’s Most Secretive Spy Agency

The government responded with ruthless persecution — just one egregious example in the NSA’s long, sordid history of fiercely guarding its secrecy.
Father Charles Coughlin delivers a radio speech (Fotosearch/Getty Images).

Ultra Violence

Rachel Maddow’s podcast tells of American Nazis in the 1940s. But the era’s real and lasting authoritarian danger came from the growth of a national security state.
Matthew Kacsmaryk in 2017 answers questions during a Senate hearing on his nomination to be a U.S. district judge.
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The Original Comstock Act Doesn’t Support the New Antiabortion Decision

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rationalized his medication abortion opinion through a distorted reading of the long-dormant 1873 law.
Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon.
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There Is a Precedent for Trump’s Indictment: Spiro Agnew

Spiro Agnew was the progenitor of Trump’s politics. He also resigned from office and accepted a plea deal to avoid jail time.
Rev. Billy Graham with President Kennedy.

Suing the FBI and Uncovering a History of White Christian Nationalism

A new book calls white evangelicals to reckon with the fact that the groundwork for their movement was laid, in part, by J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI.
Harold "Red" Grange, one of the biggest stars of the early NFL.

NFL Television Broadcasting and the Federal Courts

The NFL's control over entertainment.
Rep. Bennie Thompson speaking at the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

January 6 Committee Final Public Meeting

Video testimony and evidence presented by the House Select Committee to recommend criminal prosecution of Donald Trump.
Portrait of Aaron Burr, an American politician and lawyer who was the third vice president of the United States, serving during Thomas Jefferson's first term (1801-1805).

A Former Vice President Was Tried For Treason For an Insurrection Plot

Aaron Burr was the highest-ranking official to stand trial for treason, which some people have invoked now amid probes into ex-president Donald Trump.
Photo of the Supreme Court Building

The Supreme Court Gets a Chance to Revisit America’s Imperialist Past

A trio of American Samoan plaintiffs are asking the high court to end their status as second-class citizens.
A painting of an old gas station with modern police units in the forefront.

Organized Plunder

In the absence of tax dollars, American cities like Baltimore are now funding themselves by fining the poor instead of taxing the rich.

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