https://youtu.be/OCB1ailIWNUThen-Senator Joe Biden proudly praises the work of civil asset forfeiture policy in drug-related arrests. He argues that then-President George H. W. Bush has not been using these asset forfeiture tools to address the "drug epidemic."
https://youtu.be/NylTKobMUiEWhile speaking on the Senate floor on 6/20/1991, then-Sen. Joe Biden touted his work with Sen. Strom Thurmond to pass strict penalties on crack cocaine. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below to share your thoughts on the video.
Working with Strom to give kids 5 years for a rock of cocaine
https://fee.org/articles/how-a-young-joe-biden-became-the-architect-of-the-governments-asset-forfeiture-program/n 1991, Maui police officers showed up at the home of Frances and Joseph Lopes. One officer showed his badge and said, “Let’s go into the house, and we will explain things to you.” Once he was inside, the explanation was simple: “We’re taking the house.”
Leading up to the Event
The Lopeses were far from wealthy. They worked on a sugar plantation for nearly fifty years, living in camp housing, to save up enough money to buy a modest, middle-class home.
But in 1987, their son Thomas was caught with marijuana. He was twenty-eight, and he suffered from mental health issues. He grew the marijuana in the backyard of his parents’ home, but every time they tried to cut it down, Thomas threatened suicide.
Biden, a young Senator from Delaware, had to do something to show that despite his “liberal” reputation, he could be just as tough on crime as his Republican colleagues. He took notice of the RICO law, and he realized that law enforcement agencies were not taking advantage of it, particularly in regards to the Drug War. He turned to the General Accounting Office and asked them to produce a study on the potential uses of RICO for drug enforcement.
As the 1980s progressed, the War on Drugs would be the country’s biggest political issue. Politicians from both parties would work to show that they could out-Drug-Warrior their opponents. One Democratic Representative from Florida, Earl Hutto, said, “In the war on narcotics, we have met the enemy, and he is the U.S. Code.” Biden brought the RICO law to the attention of the Federal Government, Reagan enlisted the FBI to use it against drug traffickers, and now both parties would work to dismantle any legal limitations the law might still impose.
The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act fixed all of these problems. The new bill was introduced by Senator Joe Biden in 1983 and it was signed into law the next year. With this law, federal agents had nearly unlimited powers to seize assets from private citizens. Now the government only needed to find a way to let local and state police join the party.
This came with the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act. In addition to a slew of new powers for prosecutors, the burden of proof for asset seizure was lowered once again (agents had to only believe that what they were seizing was equal in value to money believed to have been purchased from drug sales). More significantly, the bill started the “equitable sharing” program that allowed local and state law enforcement to retain up to 80 percent of the assets seized.
Comments
What's funny is up until around December 2019 the media was actually reporting on Joe's bullshit past including his crime family until word came down that Joe was the pick and Bernie the enemy. Poof
Look at Kobe supporting the guy who put Black kids in jail for 5 years for a piece of rock cocaine because Trump is a fascist. JFC
Jesse Jackson lasted longer than Joe in 88
I'm pretty sure 2020 is the first time Joe won a primary.
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