President Trump Offers To 'Destroy' Texas State Senator
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Feb 8, 2017
President Donald Trump jokingly offered to "destroy" the career of a Texas state senator for a North Texas sheriff during a meeting at the White House, according to media reports.
Trump's remark came during a meeting with sheriffs at the White House that included Rockwall County's Harold Eavenson. Trump asked. Following a brief shrug by Eavenson, Trump half-jokingly said "We'll destroy his career".
"Who's the state senator?"
SB 156 raises the burden of proof from a preponderance of evidence to a clear and convincing standard the state must prove in asset forfeiture cases.
"I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation passed", Eavenson said.
A broader YouGov survey, conducted in 2015, found that 71 percent of Americans agreed that "law enforcement should only be able to permanently seize money or other property if that person is charged with and convicted of a crime".
'He was making a point about how much he opposed that kind of philosophy, ' he said. Police say such seizures allow them to combat everything from terrorism to the drug trade, but the practice also has victimized people who were wrongfully accused.
Texas has made generous use of civil forfeiture rules, but now some state lawmakers are talking about the need to rein in the practice, given that it looks a lot like stealing people's stuff and refusing to give it back. Eavenson declined to share the name of the senator with the Dallas Morning News. Konni Burton introduced a bill to require criminal conviction before forfeiture. Burton was not immediately available for comment. It is an open invitation for your local law enforcement officials to turn into the Haitian security police or the South Vietnamese Army.
