NPR Topics: News | How the Trump administration has undermined the fight against public corruption by Ryan Lucas AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information. Legal experts argue that the Trump administration has seriously weakened the United States’ fight against public corruption by issuing a wave of pardons for officials convicted of taking bribes or engaging in kick‑back schemes and by crippling the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, the unit created after Watergate to investigate and prosecute corruption. Since Trump’s return to office in 2025, more than a dozen former elected officials—both Republicans and Democrats—have been pardoned, including a Las Vegas councilwoman, a Virginia sheriff, the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, and a Tennessee House speaker, while the Public Integrity Section’s staff fell from about 40 attorneys to just two and its open cases dropped from roughly 200 to a handful. Prosecutors say the pardons signal that corruption is not a priority, creating a chilling effect that discourages investigations, especially in smaller jurisdictions that relied on the Section’s resources, and threatening a “corroding effect” on government accountability nationwide. Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/13/g-s1-121485/trump-pardons-public-corruption-justice #Trumpadministration #RodBlagojevich #CatoInstitute #PublicIntegrity #DanGreenberg #JohnKeller