Story highlights The documents were identified by a Justice Department task force

Advocacy groups were quick to criticize the elimination of the guidance

Washington (CNN) The Justice Department on Thursday rescinded a tranche of agency-issued "guidance documents" that explained and interpreted policy across a range of issues, including a 2016 memo that cautioned courts against the burdensome enforcement of fines for criminal offenders.

The document crunch comes as Attorney General Jeff Sessions has spent the better part of a year reversing Obama-era policies and legal interpretations, aligning the Trump Justice Department with administration priorities of deregulation and a "return to the rule of law."

In total, 25 guidance documents dating from the Obama administration and earlier that were deemed to be "outdated, used to circumvent the regulatory process or that improperly went beyond what is provided for in statutes or regulation" were rescinded, Sessions said.

In a statement, Sessions said he was ending "the longstanding abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page."

The documents were identified by a Justice Department task force operating under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March and were listed in a statement issued by the department late Thursday. The Justice Department did not provide specific reasoning behind the dissolution of each document.

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