Republican: Justice seizure policy not enough

A top House Republican praised the Justice Department on Thursday for making it more difficult for the government to seize assets, but insisted tougher protections needed to be put into place. 

The new Justice policy, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday, would only allow federal authorities to seize assets in the most serious of cases, such as when a defendant has been charged with a crime or if a prosecutor has reason to believe a crime has been committed.

{mosads}Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), the chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, said Thursday that he was glad the Obama administration decided “its practice of seizing the banks accounts of hardworking Americans on mere suspicion of wrongdoing is destructive and unjust.” 

Roskam, whose subcommittee held a hearing on the issue in February, also took some credit for the administration’s new policy. But he added that the protections offered by Holder’s announcement would be limited “unless it’s enshrined in statute and provides for verifiable enforcement mechanisms beyond DOJ’s current system of ‘just trust us.’ “

“We will continue to demand concrete, verifiable proposals to ensure that innocent small businesses and families never again fall victim to such willful misuse of government power,” Roskam said.

Civil forfeiture laws were put into place to help federal authorities battle terrorism, money laundering and other crimes that can be aided by the banking system. But lawmakers in both parties have said they were concerned that the previous set-up ensnared law-abiding small businesses and citizens. 

The new policy laid out by the Justice Department deals with structuring, a process where account holders limit the funds they hold to stay out of the authorities’ sights.

The IRS announced last year it was implementing its own new procedures to make it more difficult for the agency to seize assets.