NBC News Quotes David Laufman on Public Integrity Section of the DOJ

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.

. . .

Prosecutors in the unit, which had housed dozens of employees, are being told to take details to other positions within the department. Its current cases will be reassigned to U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country.

David Laufman, [Senior Counsel at Caplin & Drysdale] a former head of the DOJ’s counterintelligence section who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, questioned the move.

“The only reasonable interpretation of this extraordinary action is that the administration wants to transfer responsibility for public corruption cases from career attorneys at Main Justice to political appointees heading U.S. attorney’s offices,” Laufman said.

The decision, he added, raises “serious questions about whether future investigations and prosecutions will be motivated by improper partisan considerations.”

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