1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Why Is the Justice Department Standing Down Two Months Before Our Midterms? I am asking you to demand the immediate reinstatement of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and Election Crimes Branch, and to hold oversight hearings on their dismantling before the November election. When President Trump took office, the Public Integrity Section had 36 full-time attorneys prosecuting election crimes and public corruption. Today it has two, and the section has also lost all but one of more than a dozen paralegals, according to NOTUS reporting. The Election Crimes Branch has had no director since Rob Heberle resigned after DOJ dropped corruption charges against former NYC Mayor Eric Adams. DOJ has also deleted its 281-page prosecutorial guidebook, “Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses,” and canceled election-integrity training for prosecutors and FBI agents. No 24-hour Election Day command center has been established, something DOJ has stood up for decades. This isn’t only a partisan complaint. Republican appropriators in Congress have separately objected when DOJ eliminated other long-standing law enforcement programs against their explicit funding directives, warning that gutting these units undermines public safety regardless of who’s in charge. I don’t want to find out on Election Day that no one is answering the phone when a polling place gets a bomb threat or a county clerk’s office gets hacked. That protection shouldn’t depend on which administration is in power — it should just work. I am asking you to: 1. Demand AG Bondi restore full staffing to the Public Integrity Section and appoint a director to the Election Crimes Branch. 2. Hold oversight hearings on DOJ’s election security readiness before November. 3. Require DOJ to certify, in writing, that a 24-hour Election Day command center will be operational. An administration that dismantles election security infrastructure five months before a midterm isn’t protecting our elections — it’s leaving the door open. Thank you for your attention to this.