Sessions: Release of violent criminals continues Obama's abuse of executive power

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions — Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) speaks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)

President Obama continues to abuse executive power in an unprecedented, reckless manner to systematically release high-level drug traffickers and firearms felons. These 214 individuals are not so-called ‘low-level, non-violent’ offenders – which simply do not exist in the federal system. They are serious criminals, including 56 with federal firearms convictions, several career offenders, fugitives, many who violated conditions of their release, and at least one who engaged in witness intimidation.

The President is playing a dangerous game to advance his political ideology. Violent crime has been rising across the country since 2014. And now, according to new data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, thousands of the most violent, federal career criminals are applying for early release in droves because of two recent decisions by the Supreme Court invalidating long-standing criminal laws intended to keep armed felons off of our streets.

In a report released last month, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that career offenders account for more than 11 percent of the federal prison population, and are “increasingly receiving sentences below the guideline range, often at the request of the government.” The report also notes that career criminals re-offend at alarmingly high rates, with 66.2 percent of those released between 2004 and 2006 re-arrested for a new crime or violation of conditions of release – many for violent crimes.

President Obama has presided over an historic weakening of some of our most important criminal sentencing policies. In 2013, his Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to stop charging certain drug traffickers. As House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte said, this “directive, along with contradicting an act of Congress, puts his own front-line drug prosecutors in the unenviable position of either defying their boss, or violating their oath of candor to the court.”

The directive had its desired effect: According to the Sentencing Commission, in Fiscal Year 2015, the proportion of federal drug defendants convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty was the lowest it has been since 1993.

Then, in 2014, with the full support of the Obama administration, the Sentencing Commission retroactively reduced the sentences for all drug traffickers in federal prison, making 46,276 eligible for early release. This is fully one-quarter of the current federal prison population, which has decreased by nearly 26,000 since 2013, and is projected to drop by another 7,000 by the end of this fiscal year. And this does not account for any other criminal leniency measures, such as future commutations. Moreover, a 2014 Department of Justice study found that drug offenders recidivate at a rate of 77 percent.

Meanwhile, President Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to push for so-called “criminal justice reform” legislation that would further weaken penalties for and result in more early releases of federal felons, including criminal alien drug traffickers. Not only are such proposals a thumb in the eye of the law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, court and prison personnel who put time and resources into these cases, but they are ill-timed. The wiser approach is to evaluate the consequences of the already dramatic policy changes that have taken place, the rising violent crime rates, and our dramatically declining federal prison population.

President Obama has said he would like “criminal justice reform” to be his “legacy item.” Unfortunately, history and common sense tell us that rushing to release federal prisoners will have long-lasting, harmful consequences, particularly for our nation’s most vulnerable communities.

Jeff Sessions represents Alabama in the United States Senate.