Background

Effective Feb. 5, the Department of Justice disbanded the Corporate Enforcement Unit within its National Security Division and directed personnel from that unit to return to their previous posts. The DOJ also directed its Counterintelligence and Export Control Section to focus on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance.

Just two years ago, asserting that corporate crime and national security “are overlapping to a degree never seen before,” the DOJ announced more personnel and resources for the NSD, including more than 25 new prosecutors to investigate and prosecute sanctions evasion, export control violations, and similar economic crimes as well as the division’s first-ever chief counsel for corporate enforcement. The DOJ also pledged that the NSD would work closely with U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the Criminal Division to apply enforcement strategies to these areas “that have proven their worth in other areas of the department.”

However, according to a memo from new Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ is now redirecting some resources to focus on “historic threats from widespread illegal immigration, dangerous cartels, transnational organized crime, gangs, human trafficking and smuggling, fentanyl and opioids, violence against law enforcement, terrorism, hostile nation states, and other sources.”

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