The memo doesn’t state how long the freeze will last. However, it widely shuts down the civil rights division for at least for the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Trump’s nominee to lead the department, Harmeet K. Dhillon, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

The Department of Justice sent a memo to the interim director of the civil rights division, ordering a freeze to all ongoing litigation and a stop to any new cases.

The directives halt ongoing civil rights cases and could jeopardize police reform agreements finalized in recent months in Minneapolis and Louisville.

It is unclear exactly how long the pause will last, though The Washington Post reported the division will halt action for at least a few weeks.

The Justice Department appears poised to take a very different approach to investigating voting and elections.

It also signaled it could seek to back out of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in discrimination or violence.

The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered its civil rights division to pause any ongoing litigation left over from the administration of former President Joe Biden, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday.

The new Justice Department leadership has put a freeze on civil rights litigation, and suggested it may reconsider police reform agreements negotiated by the Biden administration.

Corey Amundson, the U.S. Justice Department's senior career official in charge of overseeing public corruption and other politically sensitive investigations, resigned on Monday after the Trump administration tried to reassign him to a new role working on immigration issues,

According to a memo, DOJ attorneys cannot file new complaints, briefs or certain court papers “until further notice.”

Donald Trump’s Justice Department suspends civil rights lawsuits and police reform consent decrees set up by the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the Kansas City Police Department ended on the last full work day of the Biden administration