The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/u-s-department-of-justice/)
Ariana Fajardo Orshan, who has spent most of her career in family court, has emerged as the front runner to lead the 250-attorney office of the U.S. attorney for south Florida. She has no federal law enforcement experience but is supported by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott.
President Trump named Jon Adler, former president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, to head the DOJ Bureau of Justice Assistance, which gives grants to state and local governments. Adler has been the chief firearms and tactical training instructor for U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has returned the Justice Department to the failed mindset of its past, former U.S. Attorneys Joyce Vance and Carter Stewart write in the National Review. Sessions’ requirement that prosecutors charge the most serious offenses and ask for the lengthiest prison sentences doesn’t work, they say.
The Justice Department said that after “an extensive review of this tragic event, conducted by career prosecutors and investigators,” officials concluded that “the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that the officers involved in Gray’s arrest “willfully violated” his civil rights.
By a voice vote, indicating overwhelming support, the House votes to roll back Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ expansion of civil asset forfeiture. Sessions has revived a program that has allowed local law enforcers to avoid state laws limiting forfeiture.
A jury in Las Vegas refused to convict four accused gunman in a 2014 standoff with federal authorities near the Nevada ranch of states’ rights figure Cliven Bundy. The verdict delivered what the Associated Press called a stunning setback to federal prosecutors.
Under the Obama administration, the department said the effort was intended to root out fraud by banks and payment processors and to cut off the banking system from wrongdoing by merchants. Karl Frisch of the group Allied Progress said “Operation Choke Point has been incredibly effective at cracking down on the flow of money to fraudulent merchants.”
DreamHost, which hosts the resistance website disruptj20.org, is opposing the DOJ’s search warrant demanding it hand over “every piece of information it has about every visitor.” The site organized protests against President Trump’s inauguration.
In another rejection of ex-President Obama’s legacy on criminal justice, Justice Department guidelines on forensic evidence will be directed by a former state prosecutor, not a panel of scientists.
President Trump and his team continue to poke needles at the former Alabama senator, who at times during the presidential campaign was the rare politician of national standing willing to stand beside Trump. That history has not saved him from the petulant president’s ire.