By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Justice Department unit that handles criminal and civil enforcement of U.S. food and drug safety laws is being disbanded as part of an ongoing cost-cutting campaign by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to three people familiar with the matter.
About 215 people work for the Consumer Protection Branch, part of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, including attorneys, support staff and law enforcement agents. It was listed as a possible target for cuts in a March memo by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, first reported by Reuters.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Although it is located in the Civil Division, the Consumer Protection Branch is an unusual office because its work involves a hybrid of criminal prosecutions and civil enforcement.
It handles criminal cases to enforce the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, a federal law that makes it a crime to sell or distribute adulterated or misbranded food or drugs. It also enforces statutes for the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The three sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the plans for disbanding the Consumer Protection Branch.
Two of the sources said that the more than 100 attorneys who work in the unit were notified on Thursday about the plans to break it up.
Attorneys from the unit who handle criminal cases will be relocated to the department’s Criminal Division while the rest of the unit’s employees will remain in the Civil Division, the three sources said.
Some who do primarily legal defense work for the Food and Drug Administration will be transferred to the Justice Department’s federal programs branch, they said.
It remains unclear where others will be placed, according to two of the sources.
The target date to complete the changes is by the end of the current fiscal year, which is September 30, one of the sources said.
The plans to disband the branch were reported earlier by the American Prospect news outlet.
The Consumer Protection Branch has been at the heart of some high-profile cases.
Walgreens this week reached a settlement with the Justice department in a case involving the branch and agreed to pay $350 million for illegally filling unlawful opioid prescriptions and filing false claims to the government.
Prosecutors from the branch also brought the criminal case against former executives at Peanut Corporation for crimes that led to a 2009 outbreak involving more than 700 cases of salmonella poisoning.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham)
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