A little-known policy change from President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) would allow the administration to free a limitless number of convicts from federal prison, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) says.
As Breitbart News reported last month, Biden’s DOJ announced a change in policy that allows thousands of convicts who were moved to home confinement by former President Trump’s administration to evade having to return to federal prison even after the Chinese coronavirus pandemic has ended.
Days before former President Trump left office, his DOJ issued an opinion that made clear convicts moved to house arrest would be recalled to federal prison after the pandemic’s national emergency order was ended.
Biden’s top DOJ officials have revoked the return-to-prison provision following significant lobbying from jailbreak activists. Now, convicts in home confinement can finish their sentences without returning to prison.
Cotton, in a letter to Garland this week, writes that the Biden administration’s change in policy gives broad authority to the Bureau of Prisons to release a limitless number of convicts in about a month’s time, allowing them to finish their sentences in home confinement.
“Your opinion would also allow absurd results,” Cotton writes:
Under your baseless reading of the CARES Act, even after the coronavirus national emergency ends, the BOP would have 30 days during which it could release as many inmates as possible to home confinement and have them stay there until the end of their sentences, whether for years or even for the remainder of their lives. [Emphasis added].
Such a scenario is not plausibly contained within the temporary authority that Congress granted to you, yet would be allowable under your new opinion. [Emphasis added].
Cotton also blasted Garland for caving to jailbreak activists who had been lobbying the administration to change the policy.
“Unfortunately, it seems that you have now decided to bow to the pressure from political activists rather than do your job … [the] new opinion is not based on the law, but rather on the policy goals of criminal leniency,” Cotton writes.
Cotton is asking Garland to hand over all communication on the issue that his DOJ has had with various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and special interest groups.
Likewise, Cotton is requesting a full list of the inmates released to home confinement and their sentences as well as whether inmates have been rearrested while out of prison.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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