Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is demanding information about whether the U.S Marshals Service abused asset forfeiture laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, \u201cis seeking answers about the wasteful and potentially unlawful spending by the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) of money recovered from criminal investigations or civil asset forfeitures,\u201d according to a news release by his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe is also inquiring about misleading representations provided to Congress regarding that spending based on the findings of a review conducted by the Committee\u2019s Oversight and Investigations staff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Committee investigators found a \u201chistory of excessive and wasteful spending\u201d of the Assets Forfeiture Fund. The USMS manages assets seized through the Asset Forfeiture Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, the USMS used asset funds \u201cto outfit a facility in Texas with luxury furnishings like high-end granite countertops and expensive custom artwork,\u201d according to investigators. \u201cThat facility is scheduled to be used only 52 days in 2017 and was used only 32 days in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Committee also found accounting irregularities, such as paying salaries, vacation and benefits for work unrelated to asset forfeiture, \u201cin such a way that it apparently produced a \u2018net gain\u2019 of $1.3 million to the USMS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grassley also blasted the USMS for providing incorrect information to the Judiciary Committee. \u201cFor example, the USMS underreported to the Committee annual expenditures on the aforementioned Texas facility by more than $93,000.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is looking into wasteful, potentially unlawful spending by the U.S. Marshals Service of money recovered from criminal investigations or civil asset forfeitures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":30497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":38,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[38,106,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3339],"class_list":["post-10198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-brief","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"33KU7LWI4JARBDKMYKP65AVLQM","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/congress\/2017\/09\/18\/sen-grassley-blasts-feds-use-of-asset-forfeiture\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n