The head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section has resigned after he was unwilling to accept a forced transfer by Trump administration officials who wanted him to work on immigration instead.
The chief, Corey Amundson, was informed of his reassignment in recent days. Mr. Amundson was one of many senior career officials told he was being sent to work on a task force focused on sanctuary cities — jurisdictions that are expected to be reluctant to comply with administration officials trying to ramp up deportations and immigration arrests.
In his resignation letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Amundson recounted the many significant corruption cases he oversaw in his 26 years at the department.
“I spent my entire professional life committed to the apolitical enforcement of federal criminal law and to ensuring that those around me understood and embraced that central tenet of our work,” he wrote in his resignation letter to acting attorney general James R. McHenry. “I am proud of my service and wish you the best in seeking justice on behalf of the American people.”
He added that he wished department well as it pursued Mr. Trump’s agenda, “including to protect all Americans from the scourge of violent crime and public corruption.”
Mr. Amundson is among a raft of apolitical senior department officials who have been reassigned to the sanctuary cities task force just a week into the new administration. These career officials have decades of expertise in criminal investigations, corruption, terrorism, environmental, or civil rights law, and many department officials see the reassignments as a way to shelve those people, or force them to quit.
On Monday, Mr. Amundson quit.
