More Stuff in the News: Highways, Illegal Immigrant Prisoners, Michelle's Vacation, Clemency of Drug Offenders, Patents

House passed legislation by a bipartisan vote of 312-119 to authorize and finance our highway and transit programs through the end of the year.

Judicial Watch announced that it obtained records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealing that nearly 260 illegal alien criminals, including 40 incarcerated for violent crimes, were released from Arizona detention facilities during the last week of February and the first two weeks of March 2013. After first denying that the mass release had taken place, the Obama administration claimed the releases were due to the anticipated sequestration budget cuts. The newly obtained records were uncovered because of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of Edward Tuffly, a Tucson, AZ, resident (Edward “Bud” Tuffly v. U. S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 2:15-cv-00067)).

Michelle Obama’s 2014 trip to China cost American taxpayers $362,523.53 in air travel expenses alone. The First Lady, her daughters, and her mother spent March 19 – 26 in China, in a trip highlighted by extended visits to some of the country’s most popular tourist sites.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and 18 Republican Members of the House Judiciary Committee have pressed for answers about the Obama Administration’s unprecedented clemency program for certain federal drug offenders in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Although the Justice Department’s own manual states that commutation of sentence is “an extraordinary remedy that is rarely granted,” the Obama Administration last year announced a clemency program for certain federal drug offenders and asked the defense bar to recruit candidates for executive clemency. To date, 89 federal offenders have received sentence commutations, with the vast majority of those commutations going to federal drug offenders.

Innovation Act (H.R. 9) – takes steps to combat the ever increasing problem of abusive patent litigation. H.R. 9 was recently reported out of the House Judiciary Committee by an overwhelming vote and will be considered by the full House of Representatives in the coming weeks. It is supported by a broad coalition representing many vital sectors of the American economy.