On an unknown date, internal documents, detailing a plan to give more control of investigations to Homeland Security Investigations (the investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the expense of federal prosecutors, were written.
The new task forces involving Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and FBI are rooted in Trump’s first-day executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”
This plan was largely operationalized by deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller. Miller among other White House officials will have more control over criminal investigations.
The proposed reorganization would elevate the stature and influence of Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement among law enforcement agencies, while continuing to push other agencies to pursue immigration-related crimes.
ProPublica
The proposed task forces, involving HSI and the FBI, would illegally and formally subordinate the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). While the DEA is not an independent agency, the President lacks the authority to subsume it under other agencies. DEA leaders, as well as Justice Department officials, have already been excluded from planning meetings.
Whole-of-government investigations will be headed by Homeland Security Task Forces, which will also cooperate with the intelligence community, as well as state and local law enforcement. However, this structure already exists under a Justice Department program established under former President Ronald Reagan called the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF). OCDETF is a $550-million program that rewards agencies with funding when investigations that they propose are “approved by prosecutor-led OCDETF teams.”
In a completely pointless act, the Trump administration is shuttering OCDETF. This is despite deputy attorney general Todd Blanche suggesting that OCDETF would lead in border security, anti-drug trafficking, and cracking down on street gangs. On June 23, Democratic senators received word from the Justice Department that the Homeland Security Task Forces would subsume OCDETF without much elaboration on how this merger would function.
“They are taking away a lot of the organization that the government uses to attack organized crime,” a Justice Department official said. “If you want to improve something, great, but they don’t even seem to have a vision for how this is going to work. There are no specifics.”
ProPublica
OCDETF’s incentive for agencies to collaborate may be at risk, as may be its safeguards controlling the flow of intelligence between OCDETF and cooperating agencies.
A briefing paper referred to a supremacy clause that would allow the Homeland Security Task Forces to approve or deny overlapping cases. This clearly undermines the independence that investigators need. While the clause can also be used to mitigate competition and “duplicative structures” among agencies, OCDETF already did this without breathing down the neck of the agencies it cooperated with.
Under the new plan, prosecutors will still enjoy the prerogative on what charges to apply to criminal groups, but will lose control over what criminals to investigate initially. That will be decided by “executive committees,” which include political appointees, who supersede regional and national task forces, in another element of extreme centralization.
The death of OCDETF and unnecessary Department of Homeland Security control over national and regional investigations represent the epitome of this administration’s combination of incompetence and its rejection of judicial and legal independence.
