Democrats Continue To Insist It’s Fine To Find People Guilty Before Proving It

[Geee]

The Federalist

It was heartening to see so many conservatives criticize Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ new proposal to expand the use of civil asset forfeiture, a policy that allows government to seize the private property of citizens without any judicial oversight or genuine due process. The notion that government doesn’t need to prove guilt before dispensing with punishment is the bailiwick of authoritarians.
And, quite often, Democrats.

With all the well-earned criticism of Sessions, let’s not forget that less than a year ago John Lewis and many other Democrats conducted a congressional sit-in to fight for legislation that would have stripped Americans who were placed on secret government watch lists — hundreds of thousands of them; many who had never been convicted, much less accused, of any crime — of their constitutional right to bear arms. Even the American Civil Liberties Union argued that policies based on flawed terror lists would undermine civil liberties.
This didn’t stop Sen. Chris Murphy from holding a 15-hour scaremongery filibuster to offer Americans a grossly distorted false choice: give up the Fifth Amendment or see your children die. It was then that Minority Leader Harry Reid called the existence of due process for at least a million Americans on these lists, often placed there without explanation, a “terror loophole.” And it was then that Sen. Joe Manchin went on Joe Scarborough — another person whose concern for the Constitution ebbs and flows with the vagaries of the moment —  to claim that “due process is what’s killing us right now.” It was the Obama administration that had instituted new rules that banned Americans with disabilities — millions of citizens who absolutely pose no risk to anyone — from their constitutional rights, as well.