[FOXNEWS] The Department of Justice is shelling out more than $6 billion to private companies to manage its asset forfeiture investigations, raising alarm from one nonprofit law firm that accuses police of "treating ordinary Americans like ATMs" and seizing their cash.
"You've probably heard the adage, 'You've gotta spend money to make money.' Here, it's 'You've gotta spend money to take money,'" said Dan Alban, head of the Institute for Justice's National Initiative to End Forfeiture.
Why the Department of Justice is spending billions to legally steal your money.
Asset forfeiture is the process through which the government seizes money or other property that is believed to be linked to a crime. Most federal forfeitures are civil, meaning the government can keep the seized property without ever charging the owner with a crime.
The DOJ announced earlier this year more than $6 billion in contracts awarded to multiple private companies to help with asset forfeiture investigations. Contractors are expected to help with everything from investigating and identifying assets for seizure to record keeping and providing courtroom testimony, according to DOJ records.
"These are six billion reasons we need civil forfeiture reform now," Alban said. "Congress must act to prevent law enforcement from treating ordinary Americans like ATMs."
Forfeiture generated more than $45.7 billion in revenue for the federal government alone between 2000 and 2019, according to IJ. Proceeds are often split between federal and local police agencies
"Federal forfeiture is a big business," Alban said. "And it's a particularly big business for the law enforcement agencies that get to spend the money out of these funds."
The Department of Justice awarded more than $6 billion worth of contracts to private companies to conduct asset forfeiture investigations. (Ramiro Vargas/Fox News Digital)
The FBI touts forfeiture as an important tool for "disrupting and dismantling criminal and terrorist organizations and punishing criminals" as well as "compensating victims and protecting communities."
"Forfeiture can also serve as a deterrent to others who might be considering criminal activities," the FBI wrote in a 2017 release.
But critics like IJ argue innocent Americans are often targeted by forfeiture. Fighting to get seized property back is difficult and expensive since forfeiture effectively places the burden of proof on the property owner, not the government, and because it's a civil case, there is no right to a public defender, according to Alban.
One of IJ's clients had her nest egg seized during an FBI raid on U.S. Private Vaults in 2021. The FBI seized safety deposit boxes and their contents — totaling around $86 million in cash and tens of millions more in gold, silver, jewelry and other valuables — from 58-year-old Linda Martin and other customers.
"The FBI, they feel like they can get away with anything," Martin previously told Fox News. "I just feel like it's unfair."
U.S. Private Vaults later pleaded guilty to money laundering, but neither Martin nor hundreds of other customers were charged with a crime.
The FBI took her life savings. Now she’s fighting to help others get theirs back.
Many other federal agencies can utilize forfeiture too, from the Drug Enforcement Administration to the Postal Inspection Service. Border Patrol officers seize more than $200,000 on average every day at the nation's ports of entry and have confiscated more than $41.3 million in fiscal year 2023 so far.
"Everyone should be concerned about this because you could be a victim," Alban said. "You could be someone whose cash, whose car, whose home gets seized in order to support these funds."
A previous IJ report found that 78% of all forfeiture cases the DOJ processed between 2000 and 2019 were administrative, meaning agencies seized property with little or no judicial oversight.
"If the federal government is spending billions of dollars to do it, that means they're spending billions of dollars to target someone just like you," he added. Institute for Justice does some really good work and has helped thousands of ordinary folks with seemingly insurmountable legal issues that were foisted upon them by 'others'.
#4
/\ With a few exceptions it would appear, the ruling class pretty much thinks the way Barry thinks:
"You didn't build that" is a phrase from a 2012 election campaign speech delivered by United States President Barack Obama on July 13, 2012, in Roanoke, Virginia. In the speech, Obama said: "Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that."
[FOX] Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz weighs in on Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of David Weiss as special counsel in the Hunter Biden case on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.'
[THEHILL] Having watched Big Labor buy the White House for Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing... in 2020, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has taken a page out of the same playbook. Last month, the governor, who reportedly has designs on the Oval Office himself one day, handed a taxpayer-funded sweetheart deal to one of his state’s largest public employee unions. His designs better include a massive construction expansion
The state’s new collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 gifts its 35,000 state employee members a nearly 20 percent pay raise over four years, including a 4 percent raise this year. That adds up to a 61 percent better deal than they got during their last round of negotiations.
But that’s just the beginning. The agreement also throws in an extension of parental leave to 12 weeks and stipulates that workers will have zero increases in their health insurance premiums during the first year, a $10 a month increase in the second year and $8 a month in the third and fourth years.
In addition to sticking taxpayers with the bill for higher salaries, the contract will require private-sector employees — whose own healthcare costs will certainly increase by far more than $26 over the next three years — to pick up the tab for Pritzker’s idea of what medical coverage should look like.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other leg...... the state’s pension system, already underfunded by $140 billion, will sink further underwater as state employees retire in ever-higher income brackets.
All told, the contract is projected to cost an additional $204 million in the first year and an additional $625 million over four years.
Members of AFSCME Council 31 eagerly voted in local union meetings over the past two weeks to ratify the contract, which negotiators had tentatively agreed to on July 1. And who could blame them? The contract also includes a $1,200 "stipend" paid to every worker merely for ratifying the contract.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Politicians bribe unions with your money.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/13/2023 7:53 Comments ||
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#2
Probably 5k to 10k Illinois retirees a year are moving to Florida.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/13/2023 11:26 Comments ||
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[THEHILL] Roughly 100 years ago, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson admitted that, as a player for the reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... White Sox, he and seven other teammates had intentionally lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in 1919. When a kid stopped him outside of the grand jury room and asked "It ain’t true, is it, Joe?" Jackson responded "Yes, kid, I’m afraid it is."
This is not a case of history repeating itself. After being confronted by allegations of a fixed investigation, Attorney General Merrick Garland just sent Shoeless Joe back into the game.
The appointment of Delaware David Weiss as the new special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden left many with the same disbelief as that kid in Chicago. This is, after all, the same Weiss who headed an investigation that was trashed by whistleblowers, who alleged that his investigation had been fixed from the outset.
It is the same Weiss who ran an investigation in which agents were allegedly prevented from asking about Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.... , obstructed in their efforts to pursue questions and compromised by tip offs to the Biden team on planned searches.
It was also the same Weiss who reportedly allowed the statute of limitations to run out on Hunter’s major tax offenses, even though he had the option to extend it.
It was the same Weiss who did not indict on major tax felonies and cut a plea deal that brushed aside a felony gun charge.
It was the same Weiss who inked a widely panned "sweetheart" deal that caused a federal judge to balk and trash a sweeping immunity grant — language that even the prosecutor admitted he had never previously seen in a plea deal.
That is why many asked Garland to "say it ain’t so."
The Weiss appointment definitively established Garland as a failure as attorney general. As someone who initially praised Garland’s appointment, I now see that he has repeatedly shown he lacks the strength and leadership to rise to these moments. Or he's a corrupt Dem Partisan hack, and always has been
This is why the Justice Department is now less trusted by the public than it was under his predecessor, Bill Barr. During Barr’s tenure, Pew found that 54 percent of the public viewed the department favorably, and 70 percent had a favorable view of the FBI. Under Garland, the department’s favorability had declined to 49 percent as of March, before many of the recent failures. The FBI’s favorability has fallen by 18 points to just 52 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
The most annoying part of the entire fiasco is when the news hosts drop the “Trump appointed” caveat on Weiss. We aren’t suckers. We know that for an appointment to get out of committee in the Senate, the clown would have had to be rubber stamped by both Delaware Senators who are Dems. The Bidens own the Delaware machine the same way MvcCain owned Arizona and McConnell owns Kentucky. There isn’t an anti-Biden lawyer in Delaware at this point not in hospice. Joe has been around that long. The tell is that at inauguration, when all those guys are canned, Weiss was kept on. Figure the odds of Joe keeping on a Trump guy. Any news clown tacking on the “Trump appointed” addendum is beginning their statement with misdirection. Why listen to more?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/13/2023 7:52 Comments ||
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^ Spot-on analysis, SH.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/13/2023 8:12 Comments ||
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#3
/\ Excellent indeed. I just wish I had a solution to the dilemma we face with these scoundrels.
#4
Make all judges and prosecutors circuit riders in the old style. No cozy connections to the local pols and LE. Assign all cases totally at random.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/13/2023 10:17 Comments ||
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#5
In this case, we need people to point out the truth that Hunter’s Special Prosecutor has a deep conflict of interest and has already tried to amnesty him.
We also need Comer to continue the onslaught at a doubled intensity. Jordan needs to open up on the Weiss front. Ideally, we want Hunter, Joe, Weiss, Monaco, Garland, Wray and the IRS inside the same salient or caldron until they starve or surrender. It needs to be an unrelenting artillery barrage of subpoenas, Contempt of Congress votes, criminal referrals and impeachment inquiries.
The only reason why they are mortaring Trump is because we refuse to make them dig fox holes.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/13/2023 11:00 Comments ||
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#6
^ You are on a roll today, sir.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/13/2023 11:16 Comments ||
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#11
It needs to be an unrelenting artillery barrage of subpoenas, Contempt of Congress votes, criminal referrals and impeachment inquiries.
Don't forget defunding.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/13/2023 16:47 Comments ||
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#12
^defunding as well. McCarthy will balk, but primaries are coming. If constituents begin to call, DC will become pressurized like a 50 ounce can of baked beans hidden in a scout campfire.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/13/2023 18:40 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...46th president of the U.S. 
...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body....
