Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and U.S. Representative Lance Gooden (R-TX-05) in sending a bicameral letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland stating their opposition to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) return to the Obama-era practice of directing legal settlements to partisan, non-victim organizations.
The letter is written in response to the public comment period for the DOJ’s interim final rule published on May 10, 2022. The rule seeks to reverse regulations that protected victim compensation, restored confidence in the judicial process, and respected congressional spending power. If published as a final rule, this policy would mark the return of an Obama-era DOJ practice that allowed settling parties in a federal dispute to reduce their punishment by making “donations” to special interest groups of the DOJ’s choosing, cultivating an environment ripe for corruption and abuse.
“Serious conflicts of interest arise and public trust is eroded when the DOJ requires defendants to donate to activist groups selected by the DOJ. What is even more alarming is the glaring lack of transparency; more than 11 years after the practice began, Congress and the American people still have no idea where or how the majority of funds directed to third parties, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, was spent,” wrote the senators. “By reviving this practice, President Biden is directly contradicting his promise to ‘usher in a new era of government transparency.’ The American people should remain skeptical of the Biden Administration resuming this practice.”
“We are adamantly opposed to the Biden Administration’s decision to reinstate the unethical and controversial practice of forcing defendants to pay settlement monies directly to unrelated third parties, circumventing the Treasury and Congress,” concluded the senators.
Joining Senators Cramer and Tuberville are Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Steve Daines (R-MT), Rick Scott (R-FL), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
Click here to read the letter.