Attorney General Jeff Sessions on June 29, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty) Sessions to step up drug-war seizures

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' methodical dismantling of the Obama administration's criminal justice policies rolled forward Wednesday as the Justice Department announced plans to step up efforts to seize property and money suspected of being used in crime or obtained through illegal activity.

Sessions encouraged a return to the broader use of a controversial type of asset forfeiture in which local officials pull the feds into an investigation in order to ease the process of seizing assets from criminal suspects. Critics complain that the practice inverts the typical presumptions in the legal process by allowing law enforcement to take property without proving a crime occurred.


In many cases, suspects never challenge the seizure but are also never convicted or even charged.

“We need to send a clear message that crime does not pay,” Sessions said at a Justice Department event where he was flanked by state and local law enforcement officials and prosecutors. “With this new policy, the American people can be confident knowing we are following the law and taking action to defund criminals, while at the same time protecting the rights of American citizens.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein linked the effort to an all-out push to combat the growing number of deaths due to opioid addiction.

“I think it is a particularly important at this time to return this tool to local law enforcement, because we are fighting a significant rise in drug overdose deaths,” Rosenstein said. “That’s a striking rise in overdose deaths, and that motivates many of the policies the attorney general is adopting.”

In a briefing with reporters, Rosenstein insisted that the decision to revive the forfeiture program was not a bid to reward police unions and other groups that were political supporters of President Donald Trump during last year's campaign.

"This is a not a political decision," the deputy attorney general said.

However, Rosenstein later acknowledged he was aware of Trump's comments at a White House meeting with sheriffs in February where he appeared to promise to reinstitute the program.

"Asset forfeiture: we're going to go back on, okay?" Trump said during a confusing discussion that at times spoke of seizing drugs (that are not sold by the government), and at other times alluded to the money, cars and other property that are seized and sold or reused.

"I think the president's comment there reflects the common-sense reaction that most people have," Rosenstein said.

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Former Attorney General Eric Holder essentially abandoned the local-government prong of federal forfeiture practices in 2015, amid complaints that it was prone to abuse and encouraged police and sheriff’s departments to carry out seizures in order to win more funds to buy equipment and vehicles. Holder allowed forfeitures related to federal investigations to continue and permitted a heavily restricted version of the local “adoption” program to resume last year.

The new effort appears intent on returning the forfeiture program to its former glory, although officials emphasized that Sessions is implementing new safeguards that will make it more difficult to conduct seizures of less than $10,000 and will require more information from local officials about the basis for a seizure when no criminal charges have been filed.

While other high-profile aspects of the Obama’s administration’s criminal justice reform drive — such as shorter sentences for people convicted of drug-related offenses — received a mixed reception on Capitol Hill, the effort to limit asset forfeiture enjoyed enthusiastic support from an ideologically diverse group of lawmakers. The practice has long been a bugaboo for libertarian and conservative activists who view it as a shortcut around the Constitution’s requirement that guilt in criminal cases be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Some Republican lawmakers quickly expressed alarm about Sessions' announcement.

"Back in May I encouraged the Department of Justice to review its policies on civil asset forfeiture in light of increasing indications from the Supreme Court that this practice is constitutionally suspect,” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said in a statement. “Instead of revising forfeiture practices in a manner to better protect Americans’ due process rights, the DOJ seems determined to lose in court before it changes its policies for the better.”

Many states have taken steps to rein in such seizures, often requiring that they be linked to a criminal conviction, but Rep. Darrell Issa of California said the federal move amounts to an end run around those efforts.

“This is a troubling decision for the due process protections afforded to us under the Fourth Amendment as well as the growing consensus we’ve seen nationwide on this issue,” Issa said. “Ramping up adoptive forfeitures would circumvent much of the progress state legislatures have made to curb forfeiture abuse and expand a loophole that’s become a central point of contention nationwide. Criminals shouldn’t be able to keep the proceeds of their crime, but innocent Americans shouldn’t lose their right to due process, or their private property rights, in order to make that happen.”

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While the issue has led to an unusual alliance between liberal Democrats and some staunch conservatives, the forfeiture practice has the enthusiastic backing of many local law enforcement officials, who see it as a vital lifeline for cash-strapped agencies. Those arguments have also found a receptive audience in Congress, particularly among lawmakers pressing for a more aggressive response to the opioid epidemic, such as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and, before her defeat last November, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).

While forfeiture can take place in any kind of criminal investigation, the vast majority of the money and property seized through federal programs has stemmed from drug investigations, and Sessions has said he is particularly eager to wield the tool against drug traffickers.

Rosenstein did not respond directly to a question from POLITICO Wednesday about whether the department had engaged with lawmakers in Congress about the new policy and whether he was concerned about the passage of legislation that could upend the new effort. Instead, he highlighted new safeguards aimed at mollifying critics.

"I'm not going to speculate on what others may think about it," the deputy attorney general said. "I hope that to the extent there is any political review of the department's policies that we will be able to demonstrate that if there are cases of abuses that we handle them appropriately and that our review process is sufficient to ensure that the seizures that we adopt are supported by probable cause, which is the constitutional standard."