Asset forfeiture in action.
No thanks to Sessions for reviving it and defending it.
I don’t see any safeguards here.
Seized in INVESTIGATION, not via conviction. This is public theft of private property. It is wrong. Without conviction, there is no crime, not right to be taking and selling private property.
They’ve even thrown aside the thin veneer of justification of civil forfeiture that the seized assets were the fruits of drug profits or used in drug production or sales. If you seize millions of dollars of cash from Walter White’s air ducts or his “cooking” RV, maybe you have an argument for civil forfeiture (but I still say conviction first and then punishment). But nabbing a box of comic books? That’s just legalized looting. Did they put up a drawer of used underwear on eBay too? Maybe a half box of Minute Rice?