CREW – “On January 24, 2025, the Trump administration decommissioned the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD) in an apparent violation of federal law. CREW sent a letter to the Department of Justice Inspector General and Acting National Archivist asking them to investigate and take corrective action. NLEAD was created in 2023 as a centralized repository managed by the DOJ of nearly 5,000 records documenting law enforcement misconduct across the country, following brutal incidents of police misconduct, national outcry in response and advocacy from criminal justice and transparency groups like CREW demanding accountability. The database helped government managers access information about officers who had faced disciplinary action, suspension and termination, and was an essential function of the DOJ’s Justice Management Division, used by 90 federal law enforcement agencies and was therefore clearly a federal record. 44 U.S.C. § 3106 requires that agencies notify the National Archives upon the removal or deletion of federal records, but there is no indication that the DOJ did so before shutting down NLEAD. DOJ and the National Archives must step in.”