Month: June 2022

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you for that introduction. I also want to thank the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the McCain Institute for inviting me to speak today and for the inspiring work you do to confront extremism, protect civil rights, and defend our democracy.

From my time at the FBI to the National Security Division to my time as the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor in the White House to today – I have witnessed the broadening of the threat posed by terrorism. We must maintain the focus on international terrorism while also addressing the growing risk of domestic terrorism and the appalling rise in hate crimes.

That’s why one year ago this week, Attorney General Garland announced the Biden Administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The purpose of this first-of-its-kind strategy is to coordinate efforts across government to confront the heightened threat of domestic terrorism. The National Strategy reflects the evolving and heightened domestic terrorism threat that we face today.

The Justice Department was a natural fit to help lead this effort. Combating extremist attacks and hate crimes and protecting civil rights have been central to our mission since the department’s founding over 150 years ago.

Today, that work is as urgent as ever.

At the Justice Department, we did not need to be reminded of the threats posed by domestic violent extremism and the rise in hate crimes. But the anti-Semitic terrorist attack on Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, earlier this year and the racially-motivated violent extremist attack in Buffalo last month – and so many other tragic incidents in the past year – have brought these threats into stark focus for communities across America.

The intelligence community has assessed that the most lethal domestic terrorism threat is posed by racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and by militia violent extremists.

We continue to be in that elevated threat environment. On the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, FBI Director Wray observed that, “the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country.”  

Our investigative efforts must be intelligence led and threat driven – and they are. The number of FBI investigations of suspected domestic violent extremists has more than doubled since the Spring of 2020, as has the number of FBI personnel responding to that threat.

Unfortunately, this increase in resources is needed as we have seen a record increase in hate crimes in the United States – rising to their highest level in 12 years. In response, the FBI has elevated hate crimes and criminal civil rights violations to the highest-level national threat priority, increasing the resources for hate crimes prevention and investigations, and making hate crimes a focus for all 56 of the bureau’s field offices.

The threat environment and the resource demands mean that collaboration across the department, interagency and state and local levels is more important than ever.

DOJ’s National Security and Civil Rights Divisions, now more than ever, are closely coordinating to leverage all of the department’s expertise. The National Security Division has established a dedicated unit for domestic terrorism investigations.

Even before the National Strategy was released last year, the department was stepping up its efforts. In the first weeks of the new administration my office convened the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee. Originally created in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, this body – the DTEC – serves as an important interagency coordinating mechanism on domestic terrorism issues.

We have also changed the way our prosecutors and investigators report and track investigations with a domestic terrorism nexus in order to provide a more accurate picture of the threat across the entire country. As we did in the wake of 9/11, and to ensure we have a national picture of the threat and our investigations, we are taking a data-driven approach to tacking this problem and emphasizing a coordinated and consistent approach to disrupting these threats.

These efforts advance one of the strategy’s central goals of improving information sharing across and outside of the federal government.

The FBI is on the front lines of our efforts including through the nearly 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country and through the work of its Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell to ensure seamless information sharing across the organization.

And in each U.S. Attorney’s Office we are bringing together expertise to track domestic terrorism and hate fueled violence – each U.S. Attorney’s Office has an Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council as well as a Civil Rights Coordinator. And we have enhanced domestic terrorism training in all of our U.S. Attorney’s offices to ensure that our personnel are best prepared to tackle these issues.

And because failing to acknowledge the existence of hate crimes can make victims and communities feel devalued by and disconnected from government, law enforcement and society at large, we are increasing the visibility of our efforts to combat hate and domestic terrorism. We aim to deter these crimes, communicate intolerance for them and ensure that there is accountability for crimes that inflict harm not only on an individual victim, but on entire communities.

Toward that end, the FBI is hosting regional conferences regarding federal civil rights and hate crimes laws to encourage reporting and to build trust with the communities we serve. We have also launched an FBI-led National Anti-Hate Crimes Campaign involving all 56 FBI field offices.

We are adding or expanding key positions. The Attorney General recently designated a new Anti-Hate Crimes Resources Coordinator and Language Access Coordinator to help ensure that individuals have the resources they need. And the Civil Rights Division now has as a facilitator who ensures expedited review of hate crimes matters.

We can’t come together on this topic without acknowledging and condemning the appalling rise in violence that we have seen from a range of ideologies directed at public officials – including against members of the Supreme Court. We do not tolerate this criminal behavior and have taken steps to address it, including members of U.S. Marshals Service working round the clock to help protect members of the court and to support the Marshal of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Police.

My message to the department – including the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices around the country – too many of which have or will respond to a critical incident – is that we do our work as one department. A department deeply committed to disrupting and confronting terror and hate, with the National Security Division leading the response to domestic terrorism, working in lock step with the Civil Rights Division when, as has been the case all too often in recent months, bias motivated extremism and hate crimes rears its head.

The men and women of the Justice Department are working every day to combat hate and extremism not only because it is our job, but because we believe that no one in our country should fear violence or threats of violence because of who they are. We believe it is our collective responsibility to do all we can to confront hate in all its forms.

Thank you for inviting me here today and for your collective leadership in protecting all Americans from hate and extremist violence.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Last week, Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division convened a meeting in San Diego to highlight the progress of Joint Task Force Alpha (JTF Alpha) in recognition of the one-year anniversary since its formation.

AAG Polite brought senior leadership from the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) together with members of the task force to discuss how to ensure that JTF Alpha is empowered to continue its significant progress moving forward. Participants included U.S. Attorneys Randy S. Grossman for the Southern District of California, who helped host the meeting, Jennifer Lowery for the Southern District of Texas, Ashley C. Hoff for the Western District of Texas; Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Savel for the District of Arizona; Assistant Director Steve Cagen of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and interagency members of JTF Alpha.

Since its creation, JTF Alpha has successfully increased coordination and collaboration between the Justice Department and DHS, and with foreign law enforcement partners, including Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras; targeted those organizations who have the most impact on the United States, and coordinated significant smuggling indictments and extradition efforts in U.S. Attorneys Offices across the country. JTF Alpha has been comprised of detailees from southwest border U.S. Attorney’s Offices, including the Southern District of Texas, the Western District of Texas, the District of Arizona, and the Southern District of California, and dedicated support for the program is also provided by numerous components of the Criminal Division that are part of JTF Alpha – led by the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP), and supported by the Office of Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training (OPDAT), the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS), the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), the Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO), the Office of International Affairs (OIA), and the Organized Crime and Gang Section (OCGS). JTF Alpha is made possible by substantial law enforcement investment from DHS, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and other partners.

Leading up to the meeting, AAG Polite led senior leaders from the Justice Department and DHS components in a visit to the southwest border in San Diego. AAG Polite and other senior leaders met with law enforcement officials at the border and received briefings on current operations. The tour provided an important perspective on challenges presented by transnational criminal organizations involved in human smuggling and other crimes who impact border security efforts by land, sea, and air.

“I am proud of the success of Joint Task Force Alpha,” said AAG Polite. “We are better at dismantling human smuggling and trafficking networks operating in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and elsewhere because we are a stronger, unified law enforcement team. I believe our collective efforts to combat these crimes will continue to generate immediate results, while building towards greater, enduring positive impacts.”

At the outset of the meeting, AAG Polite expressed his appreciation for the broad and continued support of JTF Alpha and highlighted that, in its first year, this joint law enforcement effort has resulted in substantial disruption through specific and general deterrence – collaborating on numerous high priority investigations and cases of significant organizations and their key leaders and facilitators, resulting in dozens of arrests, indictments, and convictions both in the United States and with foreign law enforcement partners, along with obtaining substantial jail sentences and asset forfeiture. AAG Polite praised the partnership between a myriad of law enforcement agencies in attendance, including ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), CBP, U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, and the DEA in concert with JTF Alpha prosecutors, to tackle this important mission. 

The U.S. Attorneys, Chief Assistants, and their designated JTF Alpha prosecutors spoke about smuggling trends and challenges in their respective districts and ways to better employ JTF Alpha resources. ICE Assistant Director Cagen and CBP Acting Commissioner Miller spoke about the need to continue coordinating law enforcement counter-network strategies and prioritizing support for JTF Alpha. 

Participants discussed ways to further advance JTF Alpha’s mission to enhance U.S. enforcement efforts against the most prolific and dangerous human smuggling and trafficking networks operating in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras; and to identify ways to strengthen efforts to disrupt and dismantle those human smuggling and trafficking networks that abuse or exploit those being smuggled, pose national security risks, or have links to transnational organized crime. 

JTF Alpha leadership provided an assessment of the initiative’s progress thus far and its plans to continue and enhance its work; and prosecutors and agents presented case studies and discussed various investigations and successful cases including: A Bangladeshi national sentenced to 46 months in prison for his role in a scheme to smuggle undocumented individuals from Mexico into the United States, the takedown of a prolific transnational human smuggling organization operating in Nogales, Sonora, along the U.S.-Mexico border, the over 38-year prison sentence of a Cuban national who was using his border ranch as a criminal corridor to further his drug trafficking and human smuggling activities, and the sentencing of two human smugglers responsible for attempting to smuggle 14 Mexican citizens by sea to the shores of La Jolla, California, resulting in the tragic drowning death of a 43-year-old passenger, the guilty pleas and sentencings in Arizona of individuals involved in human smuggling organizations responsible for smuggling, transporting, and harboring over 100 undocumented nationals from Guatemala and Mexico, and the indictment of eight defendants on charges of human smuggling and drug smuggling for their involvement in an international scheme to smuggle 24 undocumented individuals and cocaine from Honduras into Louisiana via boat. Additionally, JTF Alpha leadership identified enhancements made to increase the efficiencies of the Task Force model at the local and national level and discussed ways to better foster interagency collaboration to target criminal organizations involved in smuggling and related crimes in and through the region.

The meeting ended with a commitment of continued support for JTF Alpha’s work and that of the assigned prosecutors devoted to the task force from each district. ICE Assistant Director Cagen and CBP Acting Commissioner Miller committed to ensuring that law enforcement strategies prioritize JTF Alpha support, enhance information sharing, and focus on investigative collaboration. AAG Polite confirmed that the Criminal Division, including numerous components that participate in the initiative, remains steadfast in its support and prioritization of JTF Alpha and assured everyone that the department is focused on its continued success. AAG Polite also thanked the meeting attendees for their valuable and faithful service, and for the professionalism and inestimable dedication of the prosecutors, agents, analysts, and all other personnel supporting JTF Alpha.  

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Delivered

Good afternoon.

I am joined today by ATF Deputy Director Marvin Richardson, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad Meacham, ATF Dallas Special Agent in Charge Jeff Boshek, and ATF Dallas Task Force Officer Lance Amos.

The Justice Department is leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to protect communities from violent crime and the gun violence that often drives it.

As part of the Department-wide anti-violent crime strategy that we launched last year, we are marshalling the resources of every one of our U.S. Attorneys’ offices, law enforcement agencies, grant-making entities, and other components to work in partnership with state and local law enforcement to disrupt violent crime.

We are cracking down on the criminal gun-trafficking pipelines that flood our communities with illegal [guns]. We have set up strike forces to disrupt those networks from start to finish — from wherever illegal guns originate, to wherever they are used to commit violent crimes.

And we have instructed our federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents to prioritize prosecutions of those who are responsible for the greatest gun violence. Those include repeat offenders who are the major drivers of violent crime. They also include those who illegally traffic in firearms and those who act as straw purchasers.

The case we are announcing today is just one example of those efforts.

Today, the Justice Department is announcing an indictment in the Northern District of Texas, charging an individual with illegally dealing in firearms. Law enforcement ultimately recovered those guns in multiple cities in Texas; in Baltimore, Maryland; and in Canada.

The defendant was arrested last Friday, June 10, and has been charged with one count of dealing in firearms without a license and three counts of making false statements during the purchase of a firearm.

The indictment charges that the defendant purchased at least 92 firearms — primarily handguns — from federally licensed firearms dealers.

It alleges that 75 of those firearms were purchased from a single dealer in the span of just six months. That dealer has relinquished its Federal Firearms License to ATF.

The indictment also states that law enforcement recovered 16 of the firearms in incidents including homicide, aggravated assault, and drug trafficking.

Almost all of those guns were recovered in incidents occurring within one year of purchase. At least one of those guns was recovered by law enforcement seven days — just one week — after it was bought.

Data from ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network — also called NIBIN — showed that the firearms the defendant allegedly purchased were linked to multiple shootings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. One of the firearms originally purchased by the defendant was linked to two separate aggravated assaults and one incident of unlawful carrying of a firearm.

The indictment also charges that three separate times over a three-month period last year, the defendant falsely stated to a federal firearms licensee that he was the actual transferee and buyer of the firearms — when in fact he was not. Those firearms included a Taurus 9-millimeter pistol, a Glock 9-millimeter pistol, and a Glock 40-caliber pistol.

The investigation is ongoing.

I want to thank and recognize the prosecutors and law enforcement teams across the Department whose exceptional work resulted in this indictment, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas and ATF’s Dallas Field Division.

As I said, this case is just one example of the efforts the Justice Department is taking to protect our communities from violent crime, and from the illegal gun trafficking that often drives it.

Just last month, in the Southern District of New York, we charged a couple who are alleged to have purchased 68 guns as part of an interstate gun trafficking conspiracy.

Earlier this year, in the Central District of California, we charged an individual with illegally selling 89 firearms, including 53 ghost guns, as well as nearly 16 pounds of methamphetamine.

Earlier this year, in the District of Connecticut, we charged an individual who purchased at least 18 firearms in Georgia — and who had others purchase even more on his behalf. He then illegally provided them to individuals in Connecticut. Some of those firearms ended up in the hands of gang members.

Also this year, in the District of Maryland, we charged four individuals after they allegedly sold an undercover officer 24 [firearms], including 20 ghost guns — as well as confirmed and suspected machine gun conversion devices, several of which had been 3D printed.

And in April of this year, I announced a superseding indictment charging 12 individuals with conspiracy to illegally traffic over 90 guns across state lines into the City of Chicago. In that case, the trafficked guns were linked to a mass shooting and other shootings in the Chicago area, in which multiple people were injured and several killed.

As these examples make very clear: if you put illegal guns on our streets, or into the hands of violent offenders, the Justice Department will spare no resource to hold you accountable.

The Justice Department is committed to doing our part to end the plague of gun violence.

And we strongly support Congress’s efforts to do so as well.

In recent weeks, mass shooting after mass shooting has taken the lives of children in their classrooms, beloved community members doing their grocery shopping, and worshippers gathering at church.

So, as our agents and prosecutors work to get crime guns out of our communities, we are also committed to doing everything we can to support the bipartisan gun safety negotiations that are taking place in Congress as we speak.

Finally, the case we announced today illustrates the critical role that ATF plays in battling gun violence and saving lives. ATF needs permanent leadership to carry on that fight. And we urge the Senate to act swiftly to confirm the President’s nominee, Steve Dettelbach, to serve as Director of ATF. Our agents and ATF’s critical mission deserve nothing less.

I am now pleased to turn the program over to the United States Attorney, Chad Meacham.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

A federal court permanently enjoined a Colchester, Vermont, compounding pharmacy from distributing drugs unless they are manufactured in compliance with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), the Justice Department announced.

In a complaint filed May 20, the United States alleged that Edge Pharm Inc., and its owners and operators Marc Chatoff and Kurt Radke, violated the FDCA by manufacturing and distributing adulterated and misbranded drugs, by causing drugs to become adulterated and misbranded while held for sale, and by introducing new unapproved drugs into interstate commerce. According to the complaint, the defendants manufactured injectable drugs intended to be sterile under conditions that fell short of the minimum requirements to ensure sterility. The complaint further alleged that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections of the Edge facility between 2014 and 2021 revealed record-keeping violations, labelling inadequacies, improper airflow, structural disrepair and the presence in cleanroom suites of mold species that can cause diseases in humans which may be deadly to immunocompromised patients.  

“Compounding pharmacies must ensure that their products are safe,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The department will continue to work closely with the FDA to ensure that drugs are compounded in compliance with the law.”

“Edge Pharma LLC has put patients’ lives at risk by repeatedly producing drugs under insanitary conditions and failing to follow good manufacturing practice requirements,” said Director Donald Ashley of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Office of Compliance. “While compounded drugs are not FDA-approved, all drug firms must prioritize patient safety, which Edge Pharma has been unable to do. This consent decree ensures that Edge Pharma will be held accountable, and FDA will continue to take all necessary steps within our regulatory authority to protect the health of the American public.”

The defendants did not admit or deny the allegations in the government’s complaint, but agreed to settle the suit and be bound by a consent decree of permanent injunction. The consent decree requires, among other things, that the defendants stop manufacturing and distributing drugs until they take specific remedial measures and demonstrate to the FDA that they will comply with federal law. Judge Chief Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford of the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont entered the order against the defendants.  

The government was represented by Trial Attorney David G. Crockett of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, with the assistance of Claudia Zuckerman of the FDA’s Office of Chief Counsel. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont provided valuable assistance.

Additional information about the Consumer Protection Branch and its enforcement efforts may be found at http://www.justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch.