Harriet Hageman: 'I Find This Absolutely Frightening'

gentle lady from Wyoming is recognized I'm going to continue with that same planine of questioning Mr Kor this subcommittee's last Hearing in fact was on the Biden administration's use of law fair against political opponents and we've seen that play out in a variety of ways including in the the uh case that's been ongoing in New York City uh as well as what's been happening in Georgia and Florida Etc but each and every ATF rule subjects more Americans to Legal compliance which if ignored even unknowingly imposes criminal and monetary penalties as well as additional fees and legal costs Mr collector do you think that the ru making agenda is an attempt to employ lawfare against Americans who stand for the Second Amendment I do okay and if so what does that say about where we stand when the Biden Administration considers its citizens who believe and in and adhere to the Constitution as its political enemies that that is scary if that's their motivation and it's it's very difficult to comply with for sure in December 2023 the ATF Little Rock field office received a case referral for Mr melanowski in the same month it opened its investigation and spent the next several months surveilling his activities including tailing him and placing trackers on his car I find this absolutely frightening that we have agencies who are willing to go to this extent with a law-abiding citizen the ATF knew his movements his schedule where he was and when he was there and therefore the ATF knew when he was home and when he wasn't meaning that the ATF decided decided to execute the search warrant when he was home even though they knew that he would have firearms in the home and in fact Mr Cummings you have uncovered the fact that the ATF team members gathered to ex execute the search warrant the week before the raid but then changed their plan when they learned that Mr melanowski would not be home in other words they wanted him there and they wanted him there bad Mr Graham is this standard operating procedure for the ATF to ensure that the target is there when they would execute this kind of a search warrant or can they do it without the the the int the target being in the home Adam congresswoman unfortunately I have no firsthand knowledge of the warrant process and or how they are executed well Mr cumins what about you do you think that that would be standard operating procedure to wait until the the gentleman was there at 1:00 in the morning knowing that he had guns versus just going ahead and executing the search warrant when he wasn't there well clearly it's a search warrant he didn't need to be there I think they definitely wanted him there and I think that the this this does happen in federal law enforcement quite a bit they want the target there because they want to surprise them and this is part of the reason they go at 6: in the morning they want to surprise them they want them in their night cloes they want their hair stand up they want them scared angry shocked and then they want to violate their Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate themselves before they remember they have a Sixth Amendment right to call their lawyer so it's kind of a it's the trifacta they want to violate three constitutional rights the fourth fifth and sixth all in one scoop and in this case it didn't work out for well and it seems to me that the overarching issue here is that the government should have standards in place to ensure the safety of all citizens in the conduct of its investigations and actions even when criminal activity is suspected in the case of execution of a search warrant for Mr melanowski the ATF appears to have deviated from this premise and standards which are in place and in fact ended up executing Mr mowy himself that's a exactly right the Constitution secures our rights by placing limits on the federal government's power even when Americans and American citizen is suspected of being engaged in unlawful Behavior as you just indicated the Fourth Amendment secures citizens against unreasonable search and seizure the Fifth Amendment ensures due process the sixth amendment guarantees has certain rights for criminal defendants and the eighth amendment is again provides against uh protects us against uh cruel and unusual punishment Mr cumins is it fair to say that a responsible execution of a search warrants is one of the primary mechanisms that we have in place to guarantee an American's rights in criminal proceedings I can't imagine what the British were doing to people that would be worse than what happened to Brian malinowski on March 19th that would have brought about the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution Mr Graham do you have any recommendations of how to uh address the situation we're describing today to ensure that this does not happen again what kind of reforms should Congress take up to make sure that we can protect Mr milanowski and other people like him Adam Congressman once again having limited exposure to the warrant process and or the execution I would defer to Congress creating whatever laws regulations they deem appropriate to be delegated to the appropriate enforcement agency Mr uh uh Mr um Kelner what about you what recommendations would you have I I agree with Mr Graham I think congress's oversight here is really important I think what you asked me earlier about the administrative overreach is these administrative agencies specifically going against what Congress has put into place like the gun control act or like the willfulness requirement between the bum stocks and the uh pistol braces and those things what we have our agencies who are intentionally adopting vague rules and regulations in order to criminalize lawful and constitutional conduct it needs to end I appreciate you all being here I am sorry for your loss as well miss melanowski we have to expose this uh the these types of activities so that we can prevent them from happening in the future with that I yield back G Le yields back I just let the witnesses know we have just a few more minutes Mr uh Mr Davidson I don't know if Mr Fry will be able to

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Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024