AMGOA Staff
Pennsylvania


Posts: 1,429

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week on Capitol Hill, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich revealed the Obama Justice Department purged more than 500,000 fugitives from the federal gun background check system.

"It's my understanding that under federal law fugitives cannot legal purchase or possess guns. We heard from local law enforcement that the Justice Department has issued a memo that forced the FBI NICS background check data base to drop more than 500,000 names of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants because it was uncertain whether those fugitives fled across state lines. Mr. Bowdich can you describe why this determination was made by the Justice Department?" Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein asked.

"That was a decision that was made under the previous administration. It was the Department of Justice's Legal Counsel that reviewed the law and believed that it needed to be interpreted so that if someone was a fugitive in a state, there had to be indications they had cross state lines. Otherwise they were not known to be a fugitive under the law in the way it was interpreted," Bowdich responded.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/03/16/fbi-the-obama-administration-purged-500000-fugitives-from-the-gun-background-check-system-n2461438