Duckworth Demands Answers from FBI & DOJ on Unlawful Abductions of American Citizens

Duckworth Demands Answers from FBI & DOJ on Unlawful Abductions of American Citizens

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] - U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is calling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to stop its coordination with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the secret detention of American citizens. In letters to FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Department of Justice Acting Inspector General Don Berthiaume, Duckworth highlights the alarming practice of federal agents arresting American citizens as part of the Trump Administration's immigration raids, and then being unable to provide the location or determine which government agency was responsible for the detained citizen.

"When FBI assumes physical custody of U.S. citizens but denies any legal liability, authority or official relationship to that citizen, the FBI is actively engaging in anti-American, authoritarian operations designed to terrorize U.S. citizens through aggressive abductions without explanation or transparency," Duckworth wrote to Patel.

Duckworth continued, "The FBI must defend the Constitution and uphold the law, even when-especially when-it is the President of the United States that is knowingly, and willingly, failing to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and shredding the Constitution by aggressively abusing government power to intimidate and harm Americans."

In the letter to Acting Inspector General Berthiaume, Duckworth called on the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to launch an investigation into the troubling pattern and practice of FBI engaging in the unconstitutional and unlawful detention of U.S. citizens as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

"As you know, the detention of U.S. citizens without reasonable suspicion, probable cause or due process is unconstitutional," Duckworth wrote. "DOJ OIG has a statutory responsibility to ensure that FBI is not engaging in a systematic pattern and practice of violating core constitutional rights, as such activities constitute egregious waste, fraud and abuse by a federal agency."

Full text of the letter to Director Patel is available on the Senator's website, and full text of the letter to Acting Inspector General Berthiaume is available on the Senator's website as well.

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