She covers a wide variety of stories about justice issues, law enforcement, and legal affairs for NPR's flagship programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as well as the newscasts and NPR.org.
Johnson has chronicled major challenges to the landmark voting rights law, a botched law enforcement operation targeting gun traffickers along the Southwest border, and the Obama administration's deadly drone program for suspected terrorists overseas.
Prior to coming to NPR in 2010, Johnson worked at the Washington Post for 10 years, where she closely observed the FBI, the Justice Department, and criminal trials of the former leaders of Enron, HealthSouth, and Tyco. Earlier in her career, she wrote about courts for the weekly publication Legal Times.
Her work has been honored with awards from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the Society for Professional Journalists, SABEW, and the National Juvenile Defender Center. She has been a finalist for the Loeb Award for financial journalism and for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for team coverage of the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
Johnson is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Benedictine University in Illinois.
Jurors in the Proud Boys trial hear the start of the seditious conspiracy case
Prosecutors say five defendants "took aim at the heart of our democracy" on Jan. 6, 2021. Defendants' lawyers tell jurors their clients didn't plan the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A special counsel will probe government documents at Biden's home and private office
Robert Hur is authorized to probe "possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records."
A bill that would have impacted racial disparity in cocaine crimes died in the Senate
A bill that would have erased long-standing racial disparities in federal drug crimes failed to clear the Senate, disappointing thousands of people in prison and their families.
President Biden has made choosing diverse federal judges a priority
He has set records in his first two years for the sheer numbers of jurists, dozens of them women. He helped confirm 11 Black women to the appeals courts, more than all other presidents combined.
Senate probe found some federal prison staff abused female inmates without discipline
A new Senate probe finds some men who work for federal prisons have systemically preyed on women in their custody, with few criminal or disciplinary consequences.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes convicted of seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 trial
Ryan Lucas
A federal jury found the Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and one other defendant guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Biography traces public support for J. Edgar Hoover in most of his 48 years in power
G-Man by Yale historian Beverly Gage examines how Hoover held onto power and describes his complicated legacy on racial justice and surveillance.
DOJ names Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee Trump criminal investigations
The department's former public integrity chief, most recently a war crimes prosecutor, will oversee the case of the security documents found at the former president's estate and key aspects of Jan. 6.
Oath Keepers' Stewart Rhodes denies he organized the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol
He testified that the attack was "nowhere in the mission scope at all" of his group, He and four other members are charged with seditious conspiracy.
Guards who sexually abuse inmates haven't been punished harshly enough, DOJ memo says
The Justice Department report urges an overhaul in the way the Bureau of Prisons works to prevent and investigate sexual abuse by prison employees against women in their custody.