As the Justice Department reviewed an operation that allowed hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills onto the streets of New Mexico, the Biden administration in 2024 relaxed federal policies on seizing the deadly drug.
During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department, recognizing the lethality of fentanyl, in 2019 issued stricter rules directing federal agents conducting wiretap investigations to “make reasonable efforts to prevent the distribution” of the drug, even if doing so affected an investigation. Almost five years later, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden altered the protocols to say investigators “may exercise discretion in determining whether to take action to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl.”
The 2019 policy was the legal basis behind a late-2023 whistleblower complaint that alleged the Justice Department was violating directives, allowing fentanyl into the United States to track it and apprehend major drug traffickers.
The Biden Justice Department’s subsequent policy change allowing for discretion was a potential “CYA move” that affected the outcome of the internal review of the whistleblower complaint, said Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group. Empower Oversight represents David Howell, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, who filed the initial complaint in December 2023 about the fentanyl walking.
“At the time that Special Agent Howell came forward, the Justice...
Footage widely circulated online led to the spread of misinformation after a family of holidaymakers visited the site from London. A family-run holiday park has found itself the target of online ab...