Snip

All the other lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section have either quit under pressure, resigned in protest or been detailed to other matters across the nation, according to several sources who spoke with NOTUS. The section has also lost all but one of more than a dozen paralegals.

“To me, it just screams that public corruption cases are no longer a priority of DOJ,” said Andrew Tessman, a prosecutor who left the Justice Department this month. “I cannot understand why we would want to restrict that section.”

Snip

Several former Justice Department employees expressed extreme concern that the change in the Justice Manual, coupled with the flattening of the Public Integrity Section, opens the door for the Trump administration to engage in partisan prosecutions of Democrats by assigning the job to prosecutors working for U.S. attorneys — political appointees nominated by the president.

Snip

reductions at the Public Integrity Section are also consistent with Trump’s sharply defined shift in law-enforcement priorities, which puts an emphasis on arresting immigrants and draws attention away from tackling graft.The day after she was confirmed as attorney general, Pam Bondi disbanded the DOJ task force that cracks down on unregistered foreign agents who engage in political activities here. Days later, the White House issued an executive order “pausing” the long-held practice of investigating Americans who make bribes abroad to score favorable business deals. As The New York Times reported in May, the DOJ also shut down the FBI’s elite public corruption squad. At around that same time, according to one source, department leadership discreetly told the FBI to stop reaching out to the Public Integrity Section.

Snip