Ted Poe: “recent memos that have been released finally by the Justice Department regarding certain situations in the Federal…”

“recent memos that have been released finally by the Justice Department regarding certain situations in the Federal Government, specifically in the U.S. Attorney's office, have revealed numerous things. No wonder the Justice Department fought releasing these e-mails and memos. We now understand that the prosecution of Federal drug cases along the Texas-Mexico border has dropped dramatically. All the way from Texas to California, prosecutions of drug cases have dropped. In some places up to 25 percent of drug cases are not prosecuted that were prosecuted just a year ago. What is happening is the Federal Government is not able to prosecute drug smugglers, and they are asking the States to prosecute those cases. Many States--especially those counties on the border with Texas and Mexico, same was true in Arizona and Mexico, New Mexico and California and Mexico--don't have the resources to prosecute all those drug cases. So what is happening is many cases are dropping through the cracks, all because the Federal Government has dropped 25 percent of prosecution of drug smugglers into the United States because they say they are overwhelmed with cases. How many cases are we talking about? What types of drug cases? Well, in some cases they are prosecuting cases of only 500 pounds or more of marijuana. Five hundred pounds, that is just a number. But we can relate it to money, and 500 pounds of marijuana is worth about $400,000.…”