Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is creating safeguards to detect problems with the asset forfeiture program that he reinstated amid criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

In July, Sessions reversed a decision by former Attorney General Eric Holder to end the program, which had been mired in problems.

Sessions directed his deputy attorney general to hire a director to review the policy and identify and correct any problems that arise, the Washington Post reports. 

“The asset forfeiture program has proven to be extremely valuable to law enforcement in our country, but it has received certain criticisms,” Sessions wrote in his memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

Holder ended the program two years ago to prevent state and local police from seizing cash and other property without warrants or criminal charges.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A four-day nationwide sweep aimed combating sex trafficking to the rescue of 84 minors and the arrest of 120 people, according to the FBI.

The 11th annual Operation Cross Country involved 55 FBI field offices, 78 state and local task forces and several international partners.

“The youngest victim recovered during this year’s operation was 3 months old, and the average age of victims recovered during the operation was 15 years old,” the bureau said of the operation, which ran from Oct. 12-15.

The operation is part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative, which began in 2003 and has led to identifying more than 6,500 child identifications and locations, the FBI said in a press release.

FBI Director Christopher Wray (File photo)

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI’s new director warned agents and others in federal government to resist pressure to act unethically.

“At some point for everybody in this room and everybody in my organization, our integrity will be tested,” Christopher Wray told a Washington audience of investigators who work for federal government inspectors general, Politico reports. “It happens to everybody. It happens to all of us. It could be at a time where we’re being asked to make a decision that is inconsistent with what we know is right and what we know is true, where we’ll be asked to do something without fully thinking it through.”

Wray offered no details of the ethical challenges he expects to face, but he urged internal government watchdogs to resist the pressure.

“It could be at a time we think no one will notice, no one will know,” the FBI chief said. “I would argue that actually those are the times where we need to stay most true to our core integrity and our professionalism. To think critically and thoughtfully and to do what’s right, not just for ourselves individually so we can look ourselves in the mirror as leaders, but for our agencies and the government and the public that we all serve.”

Former FBI informant Scott Kimball

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A former FBI informant already sentenced to prison for four murders is accused of plotting to kill from behind bars and escape from the Sterling Correctional Facility.

Scott Kimball, 51, is facing new charges of solicitation of first-degree murder and one count of attempted escape, 9Wants reports. 

Kimball was acting as an FBI informant from 2003 and 2004 when he killed three young women and his uncle. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A Kentucky man dressed as a Pokemon character wanted to become famous so he  jumped the White House fence on Tuesday.

Curtis Combs, 36, was wearing a Pikachu outfit and planned to post the jump on YouTube, WDRB reports. 

The Secret Service tweeted that a suspicious package was found at the south fence line.

Combs is not the first person to try to jump the White House fence wearing a Pikachu outfit. He was apprehend by the Secret Service.

Other Stories of Interest

• Black Identity Extremists’ And the Dark Side of the FBI
• Comey Insisted No ‘Special’ Rule for FBI Clinton Probe
• FBI Joins Investigation on Niger Ambush
• Judging by Mueller’s Staff Choices, He May Not Be Interested in Justice
• Man Sentenced for Assaulting Border Patrol Agent

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The Justice Department continues to do battle  over privacy.

Kate Conger of GIZMODO writes:

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a critical case over data privacy, the outcome of which will likely determine how easily law enforcement can gain access to information stored in tech companies’ overseas data centers. Microsoft will go head-to-head with the Justice Department, arguing that the agency cannot use a warrant to collect emails held in Microsoft’s Ireland data center.

In 2016, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Microsoft, asserting that a 1986 law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), was not intended to grant law enforcement access to internationally-stored data. The Justice Department says that this ruling has hampered its investigative abilities in the digital age. In asking the Supreme Court to consider the case, the Justice Department argued that “hundreds if not thousands” of investigations into terrorism and child pornography “are being or will be hampered by the government’s inability to obtain electronic evidence.”

Other Stories of Interest 

• ATF signals it won’t issue new ‘bump stocks’ regulation after Las Vegas
• Trump again pressures Justice Dept. to investigate Comey
• Justice Department Indicts 2 Chinese Nationals In Synthetic Opioid Case
• Sessions tells lawmakers he will not discuss his conversations with Trump on Comey firing
• Trump and Sessions are still telling different stories about Comey
• Melania Trump has a Secret Service agent who looks strikingly similar to her — and it’s fueling a wild conspiracy theory

 

Joe Rannazzisi on “60 Minutes”

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Joe Rannazzisi isn’t a household name, but he’s certainly getting well known, particularly after his appearance on Sunday on CBS’ s “60 Minutes,” where he was referred to as a whistleblower who tried cracking down on drug companies.

Scott Highham and Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post write:

Joe Rannazzisi  is a man of strong passions who admits that he has a temper. For more than a decade, he was the frontman in the government’s war against opioid abuse. As head of the Office of Diversion Control for the Drug Enforcement Administration, he was responsible for cracking down on doctors, pharmacies, drug manufacturers and distributors who did not follow the nation’s prescription drug laws.

He said he worked hard to uphold the law, until he was pushed out by members of Congress and an industry campaign that he says has resulted in a weakening of the nation’s drug laws at a time of unprecedented crisis.

The burly, tough-talking Long Islander is now a man in the news, appearing in The Washington Post and on “60 Minutes” this Sunday to give his views on how the DEA’s war on opioids got derailed by pressure from Congress and the drug industry.

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