Ryan Crosswell, a Marine veteran and former federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section who was pressured to drop the DOJ’s case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said when President Donald Trump “tried to get the prosecutors in my section to use the Department of Justice as a weapon against his enemies, that was something I would never do, so I stepped down.”
[Note: Mayor Adams, who won the mayoralty as a Democrat and who courted Trump’s support after facing federal investigations, is running for re-election as an independent in this year’s NYC mayoral election.]
Crosswell is now running for Congress in Pennsylvania against Republican incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who narrowly beat Democrat incumbent Rep. Susan Wild in 2024. (Mackenzie won by 4,062 votes.)
Today on social media, Crosswell is amplifying a NOTUS article titled ‘The Justice Department Had 36 Lawyers Fighting Corruption Full-Time. Under Trump, It’s Down to Two’ with the subtitle “The Public Integrity Section is the latest casualty in the administration’s attacks on Nixon-era good-government reforms.”
I resigned from Trump's DOJ in Feb when I was pressured to drop NYC Mayor Adams' case.
— Ryan Crosswell (@Ryan_Crosswell) September 23, 2025
NOTUS reports that since Trump took office, my section, Public Integrity, went from 36 people investigating public corruption to TWO. Who benefits? Corrupt politicians.
Crosswell added: “This is very troubling. The 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices in the U.S. can’t continue to build cases against officials who need to be investigated, let alone prosecute new cases on their own. But Trump doesn’t care; the DOJ is now his personal law firm.”
This is very troubling.
— Ryan Crosswell (@Ryan_Crosswell) September 23, 2025
The 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices in the U.S. can't continue to build cases against officials who need to be investigated, let alone prosecute new cases on their own.
But Trump doesn't care; the DOJ is now his personal law firm.https://t.co/7ByHUCD6kN
Reactions to Crosswell’s post about the DOJ Public Integrity Section are mixed. Some attorneys including Leslie McAdoo Gordon say “it’s way past time it got gutted,” while others support Croswell’s assessment.
Chris Rice replied: “Over the years, I’ve done battle with the DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit. Each time, they’ve been a top-notch, very tough, ethical opponent. In the end, these cuts are no good. From 36 to 2? That’s absurd–and bad for the country.”
