WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has set up a team to investigate individuals and organizations providing support to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist group in Lebanon that the U.S. has branded a terrorist organization, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday.
Republicans have criticized former President Barack Obama following a December Politico report that the Obama administration hindered a Drug Enforcement Administration program targeting Hezbollah’s trafficking operations during its negotiation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Republican President Donald Trump says Obama gave away too much to Iran to secure the agreement, which gives Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Sessions said the Justice Department will assemble leading investigators and prosecutors for the Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team to ensure all investigations under the DEA program, called Project Cassandra, will be completed.
“The Justice Department will leave no stone unturned in order to eliminate threats to our citizens from terrorist organizations and to stem the tide of the devastating drug crisis,” Sessions said.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Bernadette Baum)
(Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Wednesday the Justice Department plans to hire 300 additional assistant U.S. attorneys to help fight a recent national increase in crime, including a focus on transnational gangs such as MS-13.
“As you all know, we have a multi-front battle in front of us right now: an increase in violent crime, vicious gangs, an opioid epidemic, threats from terrorism and human traffickers,” Sessions said in a speech in Las Vegas.
Referring to so-called sanctuary cities, Sessions said one problem is the refusal of 300 U.S. jurisdictions to hand over illegal immigrants who commit crimes to federal immigration authorities. “These jurisdictions are protecting criminals rather than their law-abiding residents,” he said.
Sessions noted the U.S. murder rate had risen 10 percent nationwide in just one year, marking the largest increase since 1968. The increase was from 2014 to 2015, the latest figures available. Murder and crime rates generally in the United States have fallen over the last several decades.
President Donald Trump had made the restoration of law and order one of the planks of his election campaign.
(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining three police officers in connection with the death of black detainee Freddie Gray, the Washington Post and CNN reported on Wednesday.
Last week the prosecutors failed for the fourth time to secure a conviction against a police officer in the case, and Baltimore’s police union called on prosecutors to drop the charges against three officers still awaiting trial.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson and Susan Heavey; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
