By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department unit responsible for prosecuting potential wrongdoing by law enforcement, including during the crackdown on illegal immigration in Minneapolis, has lost two-thirds of its prosecutors and is under orders to scale back its investigations of excessive force, people familiar with its work told Reuters.
The unit, which typically plays a leading role in reviewing cases nationwide in which law enforcement officers appear to violate people’s rights, has lost significant capacity to pursue investigations because of staff departures and new guidance under President Donald Trump’s administration curtailing its mandate, according to interviews with seven former lawyers in the section.
The number of trial attorneys in the unit, known as the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, has dropped from roughly 40 before Trump took office a year ago to no more than 13, according to three of the people with knowledge of its staffing. Just two supervisors remain in their roles and have not announced plans to leave. Previously, there have been around seven supervisors in the unit.
The former DOJ lawyers, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, expressed doubts about the ability of the section to conduct thorough investigations into recent incidents, including the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis last month. The DOJ has said it is investigating Pretti’s killing but not Good’s.
Early in the Trump administration, supervisors in the section told staff that investigations of law enforcement officers would proceed only if there were egregious circumstances, such as a death in custody or sexual assault, three of the former Justice Department lawyers said. State and local departments would take the lead in most instances, the three lawyers recalled.
A Justice Department spokesperson, Natalie Baldassarre, said the section expects to hire additional prosecutors and “continues to enforce our nation’s civil rights statutes aggressively and efficiently,” pointing to recent cases involving law enforcement sexual assault and hate crimes.
“We evaluate each matter based on the merits without prejudice. Nothing within our statutory purview is off limits,” Baldassarre said. She did not dispute that law enforcement cases had been scaled back, adding that the section’s nationwide scope “inherently requires prioritization of resources.”
Baldassarre said the section now has more than 25 lawyers, a combination of trial lawyers, attorney advisers, and supervisors, and declined further comment on staffing. At least five senior lawyers announced plans to leave the department earlier this month, most of whom accepted early retirement offers.
CASES STALLED
Former prosecutors who handled investigations of police wrongdoing said their case loads dropped as excessive force probes stalled last year.
The number of people charged with violating the civil rights law most commonly used in federal excessive-force cases dropped about 36% last year to 54 total cases, the lowest number since 2020, according to a Reuters analysis of federal court dockets obtained from Westlaw.
In one sign of the section’s new direction, civil rights prosecutors are handling the case against former CNN anchor Don Lemon and eight others accused of disrupting a Minnesota church service last month in protest of immigration enforcement, according to court records.
LAWYER EXITS
The seven former prosecutors in the section described an exodus of veteran lawyers as the Trump administration adopted what some called a selective approach to enforcing the law, reining in investigations of perceived allies while encouraging probes of his adversaries.
“The idea of a system where every vulnerable group is not protected equally by the rule of law is not a system I can be a part of from the inside,” said Laura-Kate Bernstein, a former trial attorney who left the Justice Department in May.
The section handles sensitive investigations involving law enforcement misconduct as well as hate crimes and interference with abortion clinics and houses of worship. The departures have curtailed the Justice Department’s capacity to prosecute civil rights violations, even in areas the Trump administration has prioritized such as antisemitic and anti-Christian hate crimes, some of the attorneys who worked there said.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump-nominated head of the Civil Rights Division, has publicly encouraged some staff departures, portraying career lawyers as unable or unwilling to carry out the administration’s agenda.
The criminal section was exempted from one deferred resignation program offered last spring that led to many departures elsewhere in the division.
INVESTIGATING LAW ENFORCEMENT
Lawyers from the section are traditionally on the ground within days, if not hours, after a high-profile killing by police.
The Justice Department has said there is no basis for a civil rights probe into the Good shooting. It has opened an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but officials have downplayed its scope.
“I don’t want the takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening,” Todd Blanche, the department’s No. 2 official, told reporters on Friday.
Lawyers who worked in the section told Reuters that videos of both encounters appear to provide justification to at least examine whether agents violated a federal law that bars officers from willfully depriving anyone of their rights.
There is a high legal standard to bring such a case and in some much-publicized instances the department opted not to bring charges. But an investigation can provide a detailed accounting of the facts and build public trust, attorneys who worked on the investigations said.
“It’s so anomalous,” said Samantha Trepel, a former top DOJ civil rights official who now works at the election nonprofit States United Democracy Center. “In situations like this, a criminal civil rights investigation is the most well-trodden path to accountability.”
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward. Additional reporting by Brad Heath; Editing by Craig Timberg and Alistair Bell)
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