“It appears … that multiple employees at the Department of Justice may have violated Local Criminal Rule 23.1, and this Court’s order of April 25, 2025 specifically identifying the strictures of this rule,” U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett wrote in her order on September 24 in response to the letter.

The rule stipulates that “non-lawyer personnel employed by a lawyer’s office or subject to a lawyer’s supervision” in a criminal case have a duty not to release an “opinion that a reasonable person would expect to be disseminated by means of public communication” if there is a chance that the opinion will “interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice.”