The Trump administration is gutting a division at the Department of Justice that oversees prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption.
Only a small number of employees at the Public Integrity Section, which oversees some of the country’s most high-profile and sensitive prosecutions, will remain as prosecutors are being ordered to take other roles within the department. Cases currently assigned to the unit will be reassigned to U.S. attorneys’ offices across the country.
Near the end of former President Joe Biden’s administration earlier this year, there were about 30 prosecutors in the division, according to the Associated Press. The Public Integrity Section was created in 1976 after the Watergate scandal to oversee criminal prosecutions of federal public corruption cases.
Throughout the 2024 campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly claimed the Justice Department was conducting politically motivated criminal investigations of him. The president called for ending the “weaponization” of the department in an executive order.
The Trump administration’s decision to scale back the Public Integrity Section appears to be part of a broader effort to change oversight mechanisms related to government ethics and business practices. Earlier this year, the administration paused enforcement of a decades-old law prohibiting American companies from bribing foreign officials to secure business.
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The Trump administration also announced it will not investigate foreign interference in U.S. elections. The Public Integrity Section oversaw the DOJ’s handling of election crimes including voter fraud and campaign finance offenses. Under the Biden administration, it also housed the Election Threats Task Force, which was launched to combat a growing number of violent threats against election workers.
Several officials resigned from the Public Integrity Section last month after the Justice Department’s second in command, Emil Bove, ordered prosecutors to drop its corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The division has been without leadership ever since.