When Donald Trump’s appointees at the Justice Department decided it was time to end the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the prosecutors overseeing the case resigned. Justice Department officials then tried to move the Adams case to the Public Integrity Section, which is principally responsible for prosecuting public corruption cases.
That didn’t work, either: The acting head of the Public Integrity Section refused to drop the case against Adams and resigned. Soon after, three other members of the section also resigned.
At the time, it was hard not to wonder who Team Trump would choose to replace them. As it turns out, the answer is apparently “no one.” NBC News reported:
The Trump administration is gutting the Justice Department’s unit that oversees prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption, three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told NBC News. The unit, the Public Integrity Section, has overseen some of the country’s most high-profile and sensitive prosecutions. Now, though, only a small fraction of its employees will remain, and the unit will no longer directly handle investigations or prosecutions, two sources said.
It would be an overstatement to say the Public Integrity Section will be completely closed, but the unit will go from dozens of employees to roughly six.
David Laufman, a former head of the DOJ’s counterintelligence section who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, called the move “extraordinary,” adding that the decision raises “serious questions about whether future investigations and prosecutions will be motivated by improper partisan considerations.”
The effective demise of the Public Integrity Section dovetails with a broader purge of federal law enforcement, including prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on cases that the president didn’t like. Just last week, the list grew, as the Justice Department ousted lawyers managing its pardon work and bankruptcy litigation, as well as the official overseeing the Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles internal ethics investigations. A day later, the Justice Department also removed at least three top national security officials, gutting the National Security Division. But just as notable, if not more so, is the pattern as it relates to the administration’s approach to corruption cases. Consider some of the developments from the last seven weeks: The Trump administration has never come right out and said that it’s tolerant of corruption, but given the circumstances, does it really have to?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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