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transcript:

I want to thank all of you for attending. I see many faces that I’ve gotten to know over the years and in the last few months in particular and I especially want to thank our law enforcement partners like the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriff’s Association, the Major City Chiefs of Police Association, the International Chiefs of Police group, and to many other officers from all over the country that are here today.

I know this issue of forfeiture is probably your top issue, a thing that you’ve talked to me most about and the thing that President Trump has indicated that he understands and supports you in. So thank you for your service to the country and all you do to make this a safer place.

As any of these law enforcement partners will tell you and as President Trump knows well, civil asset forfeiture is a key tool that helps law enforcement defund organized crime, it takes back ill-gotten gains from them, and prevent new crimes from being committed, and weakens the criminals and their cartels. It weakens the criminal organizations when you take their money and it strengthens our law enforcement when we can share it together and use it to further our efforts against crime.

Even more importantly, it helps returns property to victims of crime. Civil asset forfeiture takes the material support of the criminals and instead makes it material support for law enforcement.

Funding priorities like new vehicles, bullet-proof vests, opioid overdose reversal kits, and better training are all paid for by asset forfeitures. In departments across this country, funds that were once used to take lives are now being used to save lives and it removes the inner instrumentalities of crimes such as illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives, and property associated with child pornography from criminals, preventing them from being able to use these tools to further their criminal acts. President Trump has directed this Department of Justice to reduce crime in America. We take that seriously. I know that’s a challenge. We intend to meet it and I know you do too.

We continue to encourage our civil forfeiture whenever appropriate. We will do so. At the same time, we must protect the rights of the people in this country, the people that we serve, law-abiding people, whose property is used without their knowledge or without their consent should not be punished or taken because of crimes that someone else has committed. I know we all agree on that. We have to be careful and do this thing in the right way.

So let me just say, in the vast majority of cases this is really not an issue, the evidence is usually very clear. Our law enforcement officers do an incredibly good job. In fact, over the last decade 4/5 administrative civil asset forfeitures filed by the Federal Law Enforcement Agencies were never even challenged in court. They’re not challenging them because they were usually drug money, and they know it was drug money, and they have no basis to contest forfeitures. Even so, we want to take every precaution to protect the rights of claimants in cases that are contested in their legitimate defenses.

And so today, the Department of Justice is continuing issuing legal guidance that will clarify DOJ policy on the adoption of sized assets. It will return us to longstanding DOJ policy. That’s all were doing, is return to the policies that existed for over three decades, that I used, I was United States Attorney, many years ago. It’s also provide additional supplemental protections on law abiding Americans. This will make us more effective at bankrupting organized criminals and at safeguarding the property of law-abiding Americans.

Under today’s guidance, the federal government will not adopt sized property unless the state or local agency provides information demonstrating that the seizure was justified at the beginning with probable cause. We will accomplish this through a new adoption form that state and local enforcement must fill out before they agree, before we the federal government will agree to adopt property which will provide the kind of information DEA and the government would need to proceed with the case. Which will include necessary information that the Department of Lawyers can review carefully to make sure the case is proper. Further, law enforcement agencies who wish to participate in the Department’s equitable sharing program now must provide their officers with enhanced training on asset forfeiture laws so that we’re all on the same board and well-trained on that. The Department will adopt smaller seizures of cash between $5,000 or $10,000 for example, only if there exists some level of criminality or with the expressed concurrence with the United States Attorneys.

So when I was in the Senate, I worked with Senator Schumer. We had a battle over this issue. We made modifications in the law to provide better protections against possibilities of abuse. We required probable cause as the burden of proof for the seizure of the property. That’s important, it raised the standard that was then in place. And we raised the burden on the government at trial. And the government has the initial burden through the same preponderance of evidence standard that is used in virtually all civil law suits in America today. In addition, if the government lost the case our legislation would make it such that the government would then pay the attorney’s fees, of the claimant who won the case. We believe those programs improved in the safety and the effectiveness of the program at that time.

Further, to better protect claimants, the Department will expedite the review of civil asset forfeiture cases. State and local law enforcement agencies requesting federal adoption must do so within 15 calendar days following the seizure. That puts some pressure on your officers, but they should be able to do that in 15 days. And we don’t want to be holding money and waiting for months for some sort of evidence to come in. We need to move on these cases so a defense can be prepared if necessary. The adopting federal agency must then send notice to interested parties within 45 days of the seizure. That cuts our time. So this is twice as fast a review as required by the statue, the law. This streamline process will ensure that people receive speedy resolutions on their cases and that rightful owners would get the property back as soon as possible.

In addition to these safeguards on federal adoptions, I’m asking our Department attorneys to proceed with caution when handling forfeitures involving vehicles and residences especially if those vehicles or residences are in different names. We just need to be careful how we handle that. Some of the complaints have revolved around those kind of cases. I think the Department of Attorneys should think hard before they handle these kind of cases, and we’re directing them to do just that. Just like with the cash seizures, if we operate this program in careful and responsible way, something I believe the American people expect and deserve, with a program like this, the Department’s federal asset forfeiture program will be an effective tool while at the same time protecting the rights of property owners.

Finally, I’m directing agencies and components adopting seized property to prioritize assets that will most effectively affect our overall goal of reducing violent crime. We need to send a clear message that crime does not pay. This policy is effective immediately and applies to all new requests for adoptions by our state and local officials. With this new policy, the American people can be confident knowing we are following the law and are taking action to defund criminals, and at the same time protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Thank you all for being here. I appreciate the opportunity to work with you in partnership. We are well aware that 85% of law officers are state and local law officers, and this partnership is so many advantages, forfeiture sharing bonds us even tighter, and makes these partnerships and task forces work. As you all know, and that’s why you’ve been so clear that the Department of Justice move in this direction. I’m really proud of Rod Rosenstein, my Deputy Attorney General. He’s had 27 years in the Department, 12 as United States Attorney. He knows these issues exceedingly well, has worked with them all for many many years.

“Funding priorities like new vehicles, bullet-proof vests, opioid overdose reversal kits, and better training are all paid for by asset forfeitures. In departments across this country, funds that were once used to take lives are now being used to save lives and it removes the inner instrumentalities of crimes such as illegal firearms, ammunition, explosives, and property associated with child pornography from criminals, preventing them from being able to use these tools to further their criminal acts.”

There are two giant flaws in this. While claiming it is about “illegal firearms,ammunition, explosives, and property associated with child pornography” it is fact that no one has to be convicted of a crime in order for the assets to be seized, on the “civil” not criminal MERE CLAIM that the assets are the product of or used in the commission of a crime, or crimes. Guilt, not innocence is ASSUMED, without trial when the assets are seized. Then, even when no criminal trial ever convicts the person from whom the assets are seized - it happens often enough every year, the person has to sue to proclaim they are innocent - again showing the law is about “guilty until proven innocent”.

The second thing is the whole asset forfeiture agenda becomes an institutional fundraising enterprise that takes on its own importance and priority, often enough putting that priority over and above true justice.

We need asset forfeiture to be restricted to existing proof, in a trial of guilt and guilt demonstrating the acquisition or use of assets to be seized. An additional law can be passed to provide a civil court process ahead of the criminal trial, to demonstrate to a judge the need to have assets “closed off” from a suspect, until the criminal trial is over. That can include a court order placing assets in a non-government held escrow account, by court order, requiring a subsequent court order to have the first order lifted, or placed in the governments hands.

Altogether “due process” and innocent until proven guilty should prevail.