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House Democrats aren’t in the majority, and they can’t hold official committee hearings and call witnesses, but they can conduct oversight and do investigations. There has been a clear pro-corruption agenda unfolding in the Executive Branch since Donald Trump took office, and several Democrats are demanding answers.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary; Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Rep. Lucy McBath, Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance; and Rep. Summer Lee, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement wrote in a letter to AG Pam Bondi:
We write regarding a series of recent actions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that have significantly restricted the federal government’s ability to deter, investigate, and prosecute corruption in the United States and abroad.
Over the past weeks, the Trump DOJ has removed and reassigned highly respected leadership in DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, halted DOJ enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and disbanded several DOJ anti-kleptocracy initiatives, which targeted and seized ill-gotten assets of corrupt foreign actors in several countries, including Russia and China. Just last week, eight veteran career prosecutors resigned in protest rather than follow illegal orders from DOJ leadership to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Far from rooting out corruption and fraud in our government, as President Trump likes to claim, the Trump administration and DOJ’s actions constitute an unprecedented assault on the laws, government agencies and people fighting corruption.