President Donald Trump’s Justice Department wants the cop convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights to serve just one day in jail—and suggests he never should’ve been prosecuted in the first place. 

The DOJ made the surprising request late Wednesday night, asking a judge to sentence Brett Hankison—the only officer convicted so far on criminal charges related to the deadly 2020 raid on Taylor’s apartment—to a single day behind bars, which would count as time served. The department also recommended three years of supervised release and used the memo to argue that Hankison never should have faced civil rights charges in the first place.

The request wasn’t just unusually lenient—it was blatantly political. It wasn’t signed by the career prosecutors who handled the case, but by Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon, who now heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and her senior counsel, Robert Keenan. Neither had a role in prosecuting Hankison.

Hankison, a former Louisville officer, was found guilty last year after firing 10 shots through a covered window and glass door during a botched “no-knock” raid, endangering Taylor and her neighbors. None of the bullets hit Taylor, but several tore through the apartment’s walls and into the unit next door. Taylor was fatally shot by another officer after her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a warning shot with a legally owned firearm.

Taylor’s killing happened just weeks before the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and became a key moment for the Black Lives Matter movement—one of several cases that sparked nationwide protests against police violence. Before Hankison’s conviction, the only person held criminally responsible in the raid was Kelly Goodlett, a former detective who pleaded guilty to federal charges for helping falsify the search warrant used to enter Taylor’s home and cover up her actions after Taylor’s death.

If Hankison gets a lenient sentence, it could reignite anger among activists who say the justice system protects police officers from consequences. His federal conviction was the first time any officer had been held criminally responsible in Taylor’s death. He faces up to life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for Monday.

But the DOJ’s new filing insists Hankison “did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death.” The memo notes that the Justice Department respects the jury’s verdict, but questions whether the case should’ve gone forward at all, stating: “Counsel is unaware of another prosecution in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone.” 

Legal experts and former DOJ officials were alarmed. According to The Washington Post, Samantha Trepel, a former civil rights prosecutor who helped secure convictions against the officers who violated Floyd’s rights, called the memo “transparent, last-minute political interference” and “a betrayal of the jury’s verdict.”

The memo, she said, sends a dangerous message “that the Justice Department will not hold officers accountable who violate the law.”

Hankison was previously acquitted on state charges. His first federal trial ended in a mistrial in November 2023, but a second jury convicted him last November. Notably, they found him not guilty on a separate charge involving Taylor’s neighbors.

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The DOJ memo is just the latest sign of Trump’s aggressive efforts to dismantle Biden-era reforms meant to hold law enforcement accountable. In May, the department eliminated consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, two cities at the center of the 2020 protests. Consent decrees are legally binding court agreements meant to enforce civil rights reforms in departments found to have engaged in unconstitutional practices.

And it fits Trump’s broader pattern: from Daniel Penny to Kyle Rittenhouse, he’s repeatedly embraced men who harmed or killed people of color, then turned them into heroes.

So yes, Trump loves criminals. But only the ones who serve his politics.