The Washington Post reports:

Federal prosecutors across the country may soon be able to indict members of Congress without approval from lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, according to three people familiar with a proposal attorneys in the section learned about last week.

Under the proposal, investigators and prosecutors would also not be required to consult with the section’s attorneys during key steps of probes into public officials, altering a long-standing provision in the Justice Department’s manual that outlines how investigations of elected officials should be conducted.

If adopted, the changes would remove a layer of review intended to ensure that cases against public officials are legally sound and not politically motivated. Career prosecutors in the Public Integrity Section guided and signed off on the criminal investigations into alleged corruption by New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) and former Democratic senator Bob Menendez.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the proposal and said that no final decisions have been made. The three people familiar with the proposal spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear reprisals.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of having weaponized the Justice Department and has vowed to remove politics from the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. Since being sworn in, she has closely aligned the department — which traditionally keeps some distance from the White House — with the president, ratcheting up immigration enforcement and refocusing the civil rights division on culture war fights that go beyond traditional conservative causes such as religious freedom.

Federal law enforcement officials arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) at an immigration facility this month, and prosecutors charged him with trespassing. Trump administration officials have warned that three members of Congress from New Jersey — all Democrats — who were at the facility with Baraka could be charged as well.

Public corruption cases are complicated and can be difficult to prosecute. The agency has lost many of its high-profile cases, including the botched prosecutions of former Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and of former Democratic senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

But cutting the Public Integrity Section out of the approval process for lawmaker prosecutions entirely could give presidentially appointed U.S. attorneys more authority in shaping public corruption cases, making prosecutions more political, said Dan Schwager, a former Public Integrity Section attorney who now works in private practice.

“The reason you have the section is exactly what this administration says they want, which is stop politicization,” Schwager said. “That requires a respect and ability to understand how the laws have been applied in similar situations in the past. The only way to ensure that public officials on both sides of the aisle are treated similarly is to have as much institutional knowledge and experience as possible.” [Continue reading…]