Justice Department Shutting Branch that Prosecutes Consumer Fraud Cases

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-04-24-justice-department-shuts-branch-that-prosecutes-consumer-fraud-cases/



The Justice Department is planning to dissolve its Consumer Protection Branch, a part of the Civil Division that prosecutes cases involving tobacco marketing, fraud against seniors and servicemembers, and entities involved in the opioid crisis. A source at the Justice Department told the Prospect that the branch will be disbanded by the end of the fiscal year, on September 30. Attorneys were told at a meeting this afternoon that the agency would be split, with scant other details. The decision follows on a memo by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that called for a broad reorganizing of the agency.

Consumer Protection Branch attorneys began informing counterparts in other agencies on Thursday evening, sources tell the Prospect. The attorneys will be reassigned in other parts of the Civil Division, as well as to the Criminal Division and the Federal Programs Branch, which represents the government in civil litigation. It is unclear whether the cases in the Criminal Division will be fraud-related, or whether they will focus on other administration priorities. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration is facing well over 100 lawsuits over its actions in the first 100 days, and faces a shortage of lawyers to defend it at the Federal Programs Branch. Officials had been looking for cuts to make up for the manpower shortfall. A proposal to shutter the Department’s Tax Division was shelved at the last minute; there were also a number of reassignments out of the Civil Rights Division. That could be a reason for the shuttering of the Consumer Protection Branch. In other words, because Trump’s executive branch is being sued on a daily basis, there aren’t enough lawyers available to prosecute consumer fraud.

But the move also fits with the deprioritizing of consumer protection across the government. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has faced down an effective dissolution on multiple occasions in President Trump’s second term, only holding onto 1,500 of its 1,700 employees after preliminary injunctions in lawsuits. CFPB has dropped 13 cases left over from the Biden administration, most recently a case against Reliant Holdings, which allegedly sold bogus credit cards with high membership fees that were only allowed to purchase items from its meager online store. Trump has also ordered weaker enforcement of retail investor protections for cryptocurrency assets at the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission; the president and his family have stakes in digital asset companies and have issued their own memecoins.

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[sakabatou]

1. Why am I not surprised then there are so many fraudsters working under the ratfucker