Subject Areas

The Public Integrity Section centralizes the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat corruption in the federal government by investigating and prosecuting cases, in addition to providing guidance to the U.S. Attorney’s Offices around the country.  The heartland of the fight against corruption is 18 U.S.C. § 201, which prohibits the offer, solicitation, payment, and receipt of bribes and gratuities.  Bribery is also often charged under similar statutes, such as honest services mail and wire fraud (18 U.S.C §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346); federal program fraud and bribery (18 U.S.C § 666), and extortion under color of official right (18 U.S.C § 1951).

PIN attorneys also regularly charge federal officials with other criminal violations connected to their official positions, such as theft of government property (18 U.S.C. § 641); fraud; violations of the Procurement Integrity Act  (18 U.S.C. § 1202, 1205).

Examples of recent PIN prosecutions involving federal corruption offenses include:

The Public Integrity Section also investigates and prosecutes corruption offenses involving state and local officials.   PIN uses a variety of statutory tools to combat corruption in state and local governments, such as honest services mail and wire fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1346); federal program fraud and bribery (18 U.S.C. § 666); and extortion under color of official right (18 U.S.C. § 1951).

Examples of recent PIN prosecutions involving state and local corruption offenses include: 

Protecting the integrity of the judicial process is critically important to the mission of the Department of Justice. PIN attorneys have extensive experience prosecuting offenses involving obstruction of justice (18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512, 1519); making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001); perjury (18 U.S.C. §§ 1621, 1623); and contempt of court (18 U.S.C. § 401), and in litigating associated legal issues.

Examples of recent PIN prosecutions involving obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury include:

PIN plays a leading role in the Department of Justice’s efforts to protect the integrity of elections.  Justice Department supervision over the enforcement of all criminal statutes and prosecutive theories involving corruption of the electoral process, criminal patronage violations, and campaign financing crimes is delegated to the Public Integrity Section.  In 1980, the Election Crimes Branch  was created within PIN to manage this supervisory responsibility.  The Branch is headed by a Director and staffed on a case-by-case basis with Section prosecutors experienced in handling the investigation and prosecution of election crimes.  

PIN attorneys prosecute an array of criminal conduct related to electoral processes, including election fraud (e.g., fraudulently obtaining and marking ballots, counting and certifying election results, or registering voters) and campaign financing crimes embodied within the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA).  Campaign finance offenses prosecuted by PIN include excessive contributions (52 U.S.C. § 30116); contributions from foreign nationals (52 U.S.C. § 30121); disguised contributions through conduits (52 U.S.C. § 30122); and the conversion of campaign contributions (52 U.S.C. § 30114).  PIN also prosecutes cases involving the use of so-called scamPACs to fraudulently raise contributions based on false pretenses.

Examples of recent PIN prosecutions involving election crimes include:

The conflicts of interest statutes establish rules to safeguard the integrity of official decision-making processes, including by penalizing federal employees who participate in official matters in which the employees have financial interests, or who represent interests that are contrary to the interests of the United States.  PIN uses a variety of statutory tools to prosecute criminal conflicts of interest, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 203, 205, 207, 208, and 209.

Examples of recent PIN prosecutions involving criminal conflicts of interest include: