DOJ’s Abandonment of Electronic Innovation is Hobbling Its Mission
Every American is safer when the Justice Department’s cases are conducted effectively and efficiently. The success of criminal and civil cases now hinges largely on employees’ ability to exploit and manage electronic evidence.
Managing electronic evidence may seem mundane to many of us. But it has real-world implications in high-stakes matters. Look at the botched disclosure of the Epstein files (missing data, mislabeled files, disclosures of protected witness information, unreacted information); DOJ’s discovery failures in the James Comey prosecution (failure to produce discovery); and the trial court’s complete distrust of DOJ’s filter review processes in connection with the seizure of a Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s data. Those are just some of the most recent public examples of mismanagement; some evidence management failures are never seen by the public because they are swept under the rug by plea or settlement agreements.
This is of critical importance now because today, cases are built around evidence found in cell phones, computers, text messages, emails, videos, photos, social media, and other sophisticated electronic data. Attorneys and investigators need the right tools, skills, and training to take full advantage of electronic evidence. The digital age requires continuous innovation, integration, and standardization; otherwise, DOJ cannot meet its mission to safeguard Americans’ property, rights, and lives. This is a paradigm shift for DOJ and for all litigation.
In President Trump’s first term, Attorney General William Barr understood this. That is why in 2020 he established a new mission priority for the entire DOJ: to achieve proficiency with digital evidence and technology tools in criminal and civil litigation. He created two new internal functions to coordinate and lead innovation in litigation: a council of experts from across the Department and a new position, the Director of Electronic Litigation. The Deputy Attorney General asked me to be the new Director because of my experience overseeing electronic litigation issues for U.S. Attorney’s Offices.
The Biden administration saw the wisdom in Attorney General Barr’s approach and expanded DOJ’s efforts. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco established new institutional structures to entrench innovation in DOJ’s operations. She created an Electronic Litigation Advisory Council with 32 members representing every DOJ component, including the investigative agencies, the litigating components, and the administrative functions. She also established the Electronic Litigation Integrity and Technology office (ELIT) to coordinate DOJ’s improvements to electronic evidence gathering and analysis.
In addition to ELIT, DAG Monaco also established new institutional structures to drive innovation: 14 eLitigation Accountability Officials — one in each component — to oversee that component’s improvement; 380 eLitigation experts residing in 200 DOJ field offices to provide in-house guidance to their colleagues; and three permanent working groups staffed by DOJ experts to develop innovations in key practice areas: criminal, civil, and litigation technology. ELIT also coordinated a DOJ-wide working group to upgrade filter review practices and technology tools for protecting attorney-client confidentiality, a key practice area for the Department.
I was the Director of ELIT and my staff of technologists and lawyers were seasoned experts with decades of DOJ litigation experience. ELIT worked with the Electronic Litigation Advisory Council and the components’ lawyers, agents, litigation support staff, technologists, and administrators to acquire the right technologies, integrate systems amongst components, standardize best practices, hire skilled people, and train employees.
All of these structures were working well in 2024. The Advisory Council met quarterly and set DOJ-wide priorities. The criminal, civil, and technology working groups met monthly, shared ideas, developed solutions, created best practices guidance, and presented dozens of training programs for thousands of DOJ and federal agency employees. ELIT worked with components, budget staff, and acquisitions officials on standardized practices and technology acquisition decisions. The components’ Accountability Officials developed plans for DOJ-wide criminal case file standards for all agents and prosecutors scheduled for implementation in 2025. ELIT built an internal website where employees could share information, guidance, policy, and law — a one-stop shop for all DOJ employees. ELIT regularly engaged with public defenders, courts, and federal rules committees to identify and address problems. All of the structural innovations that DOJ managers wanted were in place and working.
But by September 2025, DOJ’s new leadership and the White House had dismantled every one of those institutional structures. They did not replace them with new or better strategies. They simply discarded them. Nothing remains of the structures I once oversaw — no coordinating ELIT office, no advisory council, no accountability officials, no designated in-house experts, no criminal working group, no internal website, no DOJ-criminal case file standards. It is all gone.
In mid-2025, several career DOJ officials lobbied the new DOJ leadership to maintain those structures and keep working on innovation measures, but they got no response. Panicked colleagues called me seeking to resurrect the junked structures and projects. When it was obvious that Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Blanche were dismantling all innovation measures, many of DOJ’s electronic litigation experts and leaders became discouraged and left. Within weeks, havoc set in for DOJ’s investigative agents, lawyers, and litigation staffers.
It soon became clear that the current leadership has shown zero interest in improving DOJ’s litigation capabilities or grappling with the enormous challenges of litigation in the digital age. It has no plan, no vision. Ineptitude and destruction rule.
I lost hope. So, with a heavy heart, I ended my 35-year career with the Justice Department in December 2025, leaving well before I wanted to go.
The Justice Department is full of the federal government’s finest and most dedicated public servants. They exemplify the highest ideals of public service: hard work, productive output, balanced judgment, successful advocacy, fair outcomes, and caring for our fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, catastrophic decisions by inept leaders are driving many public servants out of the Department. Those who remain are saddled with the overwhelming task of managing their cases without any guidance from experts in electronic litigation, without standardized best practices, without the technology tools they need, and without adequate training on how to best take advantage of the digital evidence that would protect Americans.
John Haried was the Director of Electronic Litigation for the Justice Department from 2020 to 2025, the Criminal eDiscovery Coordinator for the Executive Office of United States Attorneys from 2013 to 2020, and the Assistant National Criminal Discovery Coordinator for the Justice Department from 2010 to 2013. He previously served as an AUSA in the District of Colorado and a state criminal prosecutor.
