Hard to believe that —of all things—the U.S. Department of Justice is having “budget issues.” How do we know this? It’s the excuse the department gave Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes when letting him know his office—and the Greensboro Police Department— would no longer receive forfeiture funds:
Barnes said it had been presented to him as a US Department of Justice budget issue. He said the justice department’s claims that it doesn’t have the money due to budget cuts makes no sense whatsoever. He said the program makes money rather than costs money, and he added that all funds should just sit in an account until they can be turned over to local law enforcement – whose hard work resulted in the confiscation of the money in the first place.
“My question is where is the money,” Barnes said. “We do all the work; we work hard and make the arrests. That 20 percent was supposed to be an administrative fee. So how can they be in the hole? That’s a program that’s supposed to pay for itself. They are supposed to hold it in an account. So I’d like to know where the money is. The only way they can be in the hole is if they have been using this money.”
Of course my gut reaction is DOJ is put all its resources into proving that Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson is a racist. Latest news there, however, is DOJ is in mediation with Johnson’s attorneys as it ponders whether to continue its appeal of the judge’s ruling in Johnson’s favor in its discrimination case.
