By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley is asking the FBI to investigate whether Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen committed perjury over border rhetoric.
“I am just sick and tired of this administration lying to the American people, lying to Congress, doing it under oath,” the senator from Oregon told CNN‘s John Berman on “New Day.”
A draft memo released last week contradicted claims by the Trump administration that it had no policy to separate families apprehended at the border. Just last month, Nielsen doubled down on that claim while testifying before Congress.
“I write to request an investigation to determine whether Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen committed perjury during her sworn testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary on December 20, 2018,” Merkley wrote in his request to FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Compelling new evidence has emerged revealing that high-level Department of Homeland Security officials were secretly and actively developing a new policy and legal framework for separating families as far back as December 2017.”
Merkley said he hasn’t heard back from the FBI yet, adding, “This is the official, right way to initiate referral to the FBI for pursuit of an investigation regarding perjury.
In a written statement, a DHS spokeswoman told CNN the agency “has never had a blanket policy of separating families in custody.
“What this pre-decisional, pre-deliberative memo – as well as previously leaked pre-decisional, pre-deliberative documents – shows is that the Secretary was provided a menu of options to prevent the humanitarian crisis we predicted at that time and which has manifested itself today,” the statement read. “Secretary Nielsen specifically rejected a policy proposal to separate all family units in DHS custody.”
