type: timeline_event
A March 6, 2026 Washington Post investigation documented the severe degradation of the DOJ's and FBI's national security capabilities at the precise moment the United States was confronting a shooting war with Iran. The reporting found that many offices within the DOJ's National Security Division had lost at least half of their personnel -- including the office dedicated to counterterrorism. Teams assigned to monitor foreign threats had been gutted by waves of firings and forced resignations since January 2025.
The DOJ's Public Integrity Section -- the primary unit responsible for prosecuting government corruption -- had collapsed from roughly 35 lawyers to four or five. Former Justice Department officials described the situation as unprecedented: "Public corruption investigations are being politicized like we've never seen before."
The FBI's CI-12 counterintelligence unit, disclosed on March 3 to have been purged by Director Kash Patel of agents who had participated in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, represented one visible example of a broader pattern. Patel had fired experienced agents with Iran-specific expertise because of their connection to Trump-era investigations -- a decision that proved consequential when the U.S. initiated strikes against Iran within days.
The reporting noted that the DOJ purges extended well beyond national security. More than 100 prosecutors and career lawyers had resigned from the department since Trump returned to office. The Public Integrity Section had been reduced to a fraction of its former capacity. The FBI had disbanded its squad tasked with investigating congressional misconduct. Career employees had been fired for working on Capitol riot prosecutions or Trump-related investigations.
The simultaneous collapse of anti-corruption enforcement capacity and national security institutional knowledge represented a convergence of the administration's retaliatory purges with concrete operational consequences for the country.