DOJ ends Holder-era ‘slush fund’ payouts to outside groups
Published June 07, 2017
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...de-groups.html
The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will no longer allow prosecutors to strike settlement agreements with big companies directing them to make
payouts to outside groups, ending
an Obama-era practice that Republicans decried as a
“slush fund” that
padded the accounts of liberal interest groups.
In a memo sent to 94 U.S. attorneys' offices early Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would end the practice that allowed companies to meet settlement burdens by
giving money to groups that were
neither victims nor parties to the case.
Sessions said the money should, instead, go to the Treasury Department or victims.
“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go
first to the victims and then to
the American people—not to bankroll
third-party special interest groups or the
political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in a statement....
...Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow at The Federalist Society, described the practice as
“improper and unlawful.” He also said the practices were
barred by the Appropriations Clause, Antideficiency Act,
and the Miscellaneous Receipts Act.
“No private lawyer could give away a client’s settlement money, and no government lawyer may do so either. It is time for this
unlawful practice to end,” Larkin wrote in 2016. ...
...“Unfortunately, in recent years the Department of Justice has sometimes requires or encouraged defendants to make these payments to third parties as a condition of settlement,” Sessions added. “With this directive, we are ending this practice and
ensuring that
settlement funds are only used to compensate victims, redress harm, and punish and deter unlawful conduct.”...