# DOJ Case Quota Directive A mid-2026 instruction from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to **all 93 U.S. Attorneys** requiring line prosecutors to maintain a minimum of **25 open cases**. Reported publicly in July 2026 by Bloomberg Law and widely covered thereafter. As of first reporting the policy was still being formalized. ## What it says, and what it does not say The directive is denominated in **case count**. It sets no floor on loss amount, no weighting for complexity, and no carve-out for multi-year investigations. A department spokesperson characterized 25 as "the bare minimum," adding that "quantity in and of itself is embarrassingly low." That framing concedes the design problem rather than answering it. The objection is not that 25 is a high number. It is that **counting cases and counting harm are different measurements**, and a quota denominated in the first will reliably degrade the second. ## The mechanism it creates A prosecutor evaluated on open-case count faces a straightforward optimization: - A complex securities, procurement, or public-corruption investigation may take two to four years to charge and counts as **one** open case throughout. - Twenty benefit-fraud or small-dollar cases can be opened in a quarter and count as **twenty**. The rational response is to shift the portfolio toward cases that are fast to open, simple to prove, and small. This is the structural driver behind [[Fraud Enforcement Inversion]] — and it operates without anyone having to issue an instruction to go easy on corporate defendants. ## Context: why the quota exists The directive was reported as an effort to demonstrate productivity gains despite heavy attrition from the prosecutorial ranks. The compounding problem is *which* prosecutors left: the experienced attorneys best equipped to carry complex financial investigations are disproportionately the departures. A quota imposed on a depleted and less senior bench pushes even harder toward volume. See [[Federal Prosecutors Hub]]. Against that backdrop, white-collar criminal cases fell to **4,747** in the second term through May — about 5% of total federal criminal cases, and a modern low. ## Attribution Reporting places the directive with the Deputy Attorney General's office under [[Todd Blanche]]. Associate Deputy Attorney General [[Aakash Singh]] has been identified in subsequent commentary as the official driving the case-volume push; Singh has separately drawn congressional scrutiny over DOJ's posture toward First Amendment-protected activity. ## See also - [[Fraud Enforcement Inversion]] — the pattern this directive mechanizes - [[United States v. Soriano]] — the case that made the pattern visible - [[Todd Blanche]] · [[Aakash Singh]] · [[Federal Prosecutors Hub]] - [[Elite Impunity]] · [[Prosecutorial Threat]]