KVIG Informative

The Justice Department office created after Watergate to prosecute corrupt officials has lost most of its caseload. Cases already in the pipeline are still reaching sentencing, and new ones are still being filed, by U.S. attorneys’ offices instead.

The Public Integrity Section has spent roughly 50 years prosecuting federal, state and local officials who abused public office, NPR reported. It had 35 to 40 attorneys when President Trump returned to office in January 2025. NPR reported that the number of investigations and cases the section handles has fallen from about 200 to about 20.

John Keller, who worked in the section for more than a decade and was its acting chief, resigned in February 2025 after Justice Department leadership directed him to dismiss the corruption case against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, NPR reported. A wave of resignations followed. The Adams case was dropped after the Trump administration intervened, according to Bloomberg Government. Reuters reported that FBI Director Kash Patel last year shut down an elite squad focused on corruption and fired some of its investigators.

Keller told NPR that smaller states and rural areas lose the most, because the section used to step in with resources and expertise to bring cases local prosecutors could not. Without it, he said, those cases are not getting done and nobody has taken its place. Before 2025, the department generally charged hundreds of federal, state and local officials with corruption-related crimes each year, according to summaries it gave Congress, Reuters reported. A Justice Department spokesperson told Reuters the department remains committed to prosecuting public corruption wherever the facts and the law warrant.

Cases built before 2025 are still reaching their end. In Jackson, Mississippi, a federal grand jury indicted Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and City Councilman Aaron Banks in November 2024, after an FBI sting in which agents posed as real estate developers. Owens pleaded guilty June 29, and Lumumba and Banks pleaded guilty July 6, a week before trial. On November 5, a federal judge sentenced Owens to 41 months in prison, a $100,000 fine and three years of probation, Mississippi Today reported. The judge indicated Lumumba could face 37 to 46 months when his sentencing concludes November 20. All three are Democrats.

In New Mexico, a federal jury on August 14 convicted Sheryl Williams Stapleton, 69, a former Democratic state House majority leader, on dozens of federal charges over a scheme to divert money from Albuquerque public schools to a friend’s company in exchange for kickbacks, the Associated Press reported. She was indicted in March 2024. State prosecutors’ racketeering case against her was scheduled for trial in October.

New cases are still being filed. On June 24, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed a 13-count indictment charging Frank Carone, a former chief of staff to Adams, his brother and two others with bribery and money laundering tied to a New York City migrant shelter contract. All four pleaded not guilty and were released on bond. Adams was not accused of wrongdoing in that indictment, PBS News reported.

The Jackson and New Mexico cases were indicted in 2024. Keller’s warning is about the cases that never get started.