Posted on 02/18/2017 8:22:41 AM PST by Makana
So, you’re sitting on millions of dollars’ worth of confiscated property. You want to give your workers a raise, but federal rules bar you from using seized assets to fund salaries. What’s an attorney general to do?
Well, if you’re Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, you turn to a strange source for the solution: the very U.S. Justice Department officials who are responsible for enforcing the rules you want to skirt.
They told Herring he could use the funds to cover routine costs “so long as your overall budget does not decrease.” Herring promptly started using seized funds to cover operational expenses like vehicle maintenance and rent payments — and then diverted funds that normally would have paid those bills into hefty salary hikes — up to $15,000 each for 64 attorneys.
(Excerpt) Read more at richmond.com ...
This sentence: “And in, the way things are now, there being no worry a jury may not see things your way first.”
... was badly edited.
I meant: “and given the way things are now there is no worry that a jury may not see things the government’s way that there might otherwise be.”
All our government is corrupt.
They just beg for being taken down however necessary.
To the latter, no, but if it’s incorrect and you sign it it’s considered perjury.
The root of asset forfeiture rests on the assumption that the asset forfeited was obtained by “ill gotten gains”.
Not intentionally...
Have you not noticed me suggesting limiting them to fines allowed as well?
I did notice that, and am in full agreement.
My point is government overreach is always additive and always cumulative.
Asset forfeiture is, as this time, pretty much easy peasy. Due process? Smell you losers later, we’ve got your stuff right now.
And you need to sue us to get it back, and in the unlikely event that we fail to slant the evidence against you, fail in our efforts to conceal exculpatory evidence from your council and the courts, and lie well enough to insure the court outcome that lets us keep your house, we'll give what's left of it back to you.
Or maybe you can get the judge we party with to issue a court order requiring us to return it sooner? Good luck with that, we got it, easy-peasy.
Do you really think the folks in government will undertake expensive and hard work, with no guarantees of success, before they even have a chance to take your stuff with the same attitudes they now seize stuff when it’s easy and cheap to do?
If they actually think you are guilty of crimes other than having stuff they want, I expect them to, oh I dunno, do the jobs we pay them the wages to do.
I think we agree that asset seizure by people who directly benefit from the value of goods received is bad in and of itself.
My point is tying that benefit to a conviction is even worse, not everyone, not even every cop, DA, public defender, or even judge is above the temptation of access to vast wealth on the broken lives of others.
Neither the government, nor any government employee should ever benefit from assets seized. They should be sold, contingent on a conviction, at fair market value and ALL proceeds go to a crime victims reparation fund.
Oh well. The Law allow for fines but not for excessive fines. I guess pounds of flesh may not be gotten.
A law not pursuant to the Constitution is not law.
Perjury over something that cannot lawfully be illegal is as unjust as saying a fine, which is what should be assessed if you’ve not obeyed a Rule or Regulation, is a tax.
Obama and the DNC can all disappear down a sinkhole for what I care. We’d be better off without them.
The war on drugs, should be called the war on the CIA’s competition in the drug trade.
Just another unconstitutional law foisted on Americans by the corrupt politicians in both parties and unelected unaccountable bureaucrats.
The sheriff of Nottingham steals more money.
Yup, neither 0bamacare nor the Controlled Substances Act.
Hmm, the act cited did not state that the AG was exempted so I would ASSUME that it would be applicable.
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