Hasta La Gadget!

For SELF, by Korin Miller.

Bachelorette star Kaitlyn Bristowe says that freezing her eggs “wasn’t an easy process.” Here’s what you should know about what the procedure is actually like.

More and more, women looking for options when it comes to their reproductive future have turned to egg freezing. In addition to the rise of “egg freezing parties” nationwide, some employers are even adding egg freezing to their benefits packages.

But there are many myths about what freezing your eggs actually is like. So when former Bachelorette star Kaitlyn Bristowe recently referenced the toll that freezing her eggs has had on her body — she was quoted in a Good Morning America segment as saying that egg freezing “wasn’t an easy process” and tweeted that she was on “pain meds”; and her fiancé acknowledged her “strength & courage” in an Instagram post about her experience — it made some wonder: how hard on your body is freezing your eggs?

Jaime Knopman, M.D., a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and director of fertility preservation for the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, New York, tells SELF that the actual egg freezing process is fairly straightforward. “There are many myths out there surrounding egg freezing — it is super painful, it will make me fat, and it will take several months,” she says. “These are all incorrect.”

From start to finish, the egg freezing process can be done in a month or so, experts say. If you’re interested in freezing your eggs, you’ll start with a consultation with a doctor, says Jennifer Hirshfeld-Cytron, M.D., a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and director of fertility preservation for Fertility Centers of Illinois. That’s followed by testing on the third day of your cycle to assess the biological age of your ovaries and figure out what dosage you’ll need of ovary-stimulating medications. From there, you’ll have to give yourself some shots and go to your doctor’s office for monitoring for a few weeks before going in for the actual egg retrieval.

First things first: If you’re thinking of freezing your eggs, here’s what you should know about the procedure.

In 2012, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine dropped the “experimental” label from egg freezing, saying that there were enough data to deem the procedure safe for women with infertility issues, those undergoing cancer treatment, or those with other medical conditions that might affect future fertility. However, the committee did not extend this recommendation to healthy women who want to use the procedure as an option for delaying when to have children. Instead, the group recommends that women without fertility issues “proceed with caution,” especially since there aren’t enough long-term studies on the consequences of the egg retrieval process.

If you do decide to explore this option, know that freezing your eggs isn’t cheap: Experts say it usually costs about $10,000 up front, plus a few hundred dollars a year to store the eggs. In addition, thawing and insemination can cost several thousand dollars once you decide to use your eggs — most patients never end up using their eggs.

Also, like many fertility-assistance procedures, freezing your eggs isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be able to get pregnant — and age is a factor. A recent study found that freezing your eggs before 34 years old leads to the most chance of success. “Egg freezing is a wonderful option for women, but they do need to realize that the age at which a woman freezes her eggs can impact future success,” Jane Frederick, M.D., a board certified reproductive endocrinologist and fertility expert from Orange County, Calif., tells SELF. An egg is also a single cell and is more fragile than an embryo, Frederick points out, so if a woman has a partner she wants to create embryos with, that’s a better option — embryos are grown out for five days in the lab and contain more than 100 cells.

Of course, success rates differ depending on where you go for your procedure. One study found that over half of egg freezing facilities in the U.S. have never thawed and successfully inseminated any of their clients’ eggs. So keep that in mind when you’re searching — you want to go to a facility that has done this for a while and has a high rate of success. “You want a facility where they haven’t just frozen eggs, but created children from the eggs that are frozen,” Hirshfeld-Cyrton says. “All places are not the same.”

Egg freezing prep can cause mild discomfort, but usually nothing more.

Knopman says the prep work before an egg retrieval, the procedure in which doctors actually remove the eggs from your ovaries, is “pretty minimal.” Women are usually given injectable gonadotropins, hormones produced in the brain that in a normal menstrual cycle work in tandem to stimulate the production and release of an egg. “When given in higher doses…we can stimulate ovaries to produce multiple eggs,” she explains.

Women usually start injecting themselves with gonadotropins on the third or fourth day of their period, Hirshfeld-Cytron says, and a third medication is added around day eight to 12 of the cycle that prevents their ovaries from actually releasing the eggs. “It’s not a foreign substance and people do not have unusual reactions — they usually feel quite well when taking the stimulants,” Mark Surrey, M.D., cofounder and medical director of the Southern California Reproductive Center, tells SELF. At one point, a woman will have two or three injections a day, and will need to go to the doctor’s office for frequent monitoring, usually every day or every other day.

Most women feel fine on the medications, but you may experience bloating, fertility expert Carl Herbert, M.D., of Pacific Fertility Center, San Francisco, tells SELF. “Fitted clothing may be uncomfortable for a day or two before you take out the eggs and a week after,” he says. The medications you take pre-egg retrieval stimulate follicles in your ovaries and can produce more than a dozen eggs, where typically your body would just produce one. “Your ovaries may be bigger as a result, and your tummy is going to bloat out,” he says.

Some women may experience more severe bloating and abdominal pain, which could be a condition called ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). OHSS happens when the ovaries become so swollen that they leak fluid in the surrounding areas in your body. The risk of developing OHSS is low, but it is a serious, life-threatening potential complication of the egg retrieval process that may require hospitalization.

The retrieval process is usually an outpatient procedure using anesthesia.

You’re under anesthesia for the actual retrieval, and Herbert says the whole process — which involves going in vaginally and using a small needle to get the eggs — takes about five to 10 minutes. However, Surrey says you should plan to be at the clinic for about an hour after your procedure is done to recover from the anesthesia. You’ll also need someone to drive you home.

In short, freezing your eggs comes with minimal immediate risks — but it’s not always as simple as it seems, and the procedures long-term safety hasn’t yet been fully studied.

“While you will feel some discomfort when you wake up — cramping, bloating — you shouldn’t feel any pain,” Knopman says. Spotting and cramping is pretty common after you undergo an egg retrieval, Hirshfeld-Cytron says, and you may feel nauseous and wiped out. “It’s definitely a couch potato type of day, but the vast majority of patients are back at work the next day,” she says. Complications from the procedure are very rare but include vaginal or intra-abdominal bleeding, infection, ovarian torsion (when an ovary twists around itself and cuts off blood supply), and the potential — although also very rare — risks from using anesthesia that can occur during any type of surgery. You should get your period about 10 to 14 days after egg retrieval, after which your symptoms should go away, Herbert says.

In short, freezing your eggs comes with minimal immediate risks — but it’s not always as simple as it seems, and the procedures long-term safety hasn’t yet been fully studied. If you’re thinking of undergoing the procedure, your age, finances, risk factors, and the success rate of your local clinic should all play a factor in your decision-making process.

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President Trump appointed Chris Christie to an opioid commission the same day two former Christie aides got prison sentences for Bridgegate, proving the maxim that crime doesn’t pay unless you’re the person ultimately responsible for the crime. Trey Radel, the former congressman busted on cocaine charges, has published a memoir that delves into the forgotten concept of shame. And police stopped an out-of-control maniac hurtling toward the Capitol today, making us wonder where they were the night Trump addressed Congress…. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, March 29th, 2017:

U.S. INVADES LUXEMBOURG …is a headline we might see someday because Trump misheard something while listening to Infowars in the shower. S.V. Date: “Overseas allies perplexed how a man as unschooled in world affairs as Trump could have ascended to a role traditionally regarded as the leader of the free world should look to the peculiar contours of the 2016 Republican primary campaign…. Trump made ― and apparently believed ― incorrect assertions about the numbers of undocumented immigrants coming across the southern border, the structure of the NATO alliance and its policies and the significance of trade deficits, among a host of many others…. ‘Every day you wake up, have a cup of coffee, or maybe you’re still lying in bed, and get on Twitter and figure out what the fucking crisis of the day is,’ said one former U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition his name not be used. [HuffPost]

GOVERNMENT LOOKING LESS SHUTDOWNY TODAY – Jordan Fabian: “The White House indicated Wednesday that President Trump could go along with a government funding bill that does not include money to begin building his proposed wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Republicans are not planning on including the funds in a measure to keep the government funded beyond the end of April. ‘That is our request,’ press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday when asked if the wall funding is a deal-breaker for a must-pass spending bill. ‘We will continue to work with Congress on the rest of the [fiscal 2017] budget,’ he said.” [The Hill]

Republicans are mulling another try at voting on their Obamacare repeal bill next week, Bloomberg’s Billy House and Sahil Kapur report.

REPUBLICANS EXECUTING PERFECT SLOW-MOTION OWN GOAL – The House Freedom Caucus might do more to advance government health care than anyone since LBJ. Jeffrey Young: “The failure of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act could lead to an ironic result: the expansion of government-run health care…. Now that the federal effort to repeal and replace ‘Obamacare’ is dead, states that turned down those federal dollars to cover their poorest residents may revisit the idea to open up Medicaid ― which is jointly managed and financed by the federal and state governments ― to more people.” [HuffPost]

MAYBE TRUMP’S WEIRD DOCTOR WILL TREAT THEM FOR FREE – Trump supporters might be trading their health care for more #freedom. Alissa Scheller and Jonathan Cohn: “President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress want to undermine the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, they’re going to be wreaking havoc in the places their voters call home. In counties with just one or two insurers offering coverage through the law’s new exchanges, 54.5 percent of residents voted for Trump in 2016, while just 40.8 percent voted for Clinton, according to a Huffington Post analysis of election returns and data from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Overall, among the roughly 62 million voters in those counties, 34 million cast ballots for Trump while 25 million went for Clinton.” [HuffPost]

The White House’s proposed cuts for legal aid also would hit Trump country hard.

TRUMP TALKS TO CHUCK SCHUMER, SAYS ‘CHUCK’ A LOT – Shane Goldmacher and Burgess Everett: “As President Donald Trump welcomed more than half the Senate to the White House on Tuesday night in one of his first big splashes on the Washington social scene, he gave a shout to a recognizable Democratic face in the crowd. ‘Chuck? I see Chuck,’ Trump said. ‘Hello, Chuck.’ The six words were the first the president had directed at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in person in more than two months.” [Politico]

Little scare on Hill today as the Capitol Police opened fire on a driver who allegedly tried to run over some officers just a couple blocks from the Capitol. A woman was arrested. [Reuters’ Ian Simpson]

DEVIN NUNES, WHAT R U DOING – Sam Stein and Jessica Schulberg: “Even some of Nunes’ Republican colleagues are puzzled by his handling of the situation. ‘The chairman and ranking member not talking with each other ― that’s bizarre on such an important issue,’ one GOP lawmaker said Wednesday. ‘I just can’t imagine myself and my counterpart, on something this important to the country, having zero communication.’ Nunes’ behavior, the Republican lawmaker continued, is making it appear as though he is ‘somebody who’s in essence working for the administration.’” [HuffPost]

TIME FOR SOME TRAFFIC PROBLEMS…IN JAIL – Amanda Terkel: “A judge sentenced two of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) former aides Wednesday for their role in the Bridgegate scandal in 2013. In November, a federal jury found Bill Baroni, who served as Christie’s top official at the Port Authority of New York, and Bridget Anne Kelly, who was the governor’s deputy chief of staff, guilty on charges of conspiracy and fraud. Baroni received a two-year prison sentence Wednesday, and Kelly got 18 months.” [HuffPost]

TIME FOR SOME TRAFFIC PROBLEMS…IN THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC – Marina Fang: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) will lead a commission to combat the nation’s opioid crisis, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday at a White House event on the issue. Christie has long spoken in personal terms about the need to fight drug addiction. During his presidential campaign in 2015, he recounted the story of a law school friend who died after battling an addiction to prescription painkillers, a moment that went viral.” [HuffPost]

SPICER LEARNING ABOUT SEXISM AND RACISM FOR THE FIRST TIME – Sam Levine: “White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to accusations of sexism and racism after he repeatedly told senior journalist April Ryan to stop shaking her head during Tuesday’s press briefing…. Spicer said that Ryan was a tough reporter and he was ‘astonished’ at the accusation. He insisted that he treats the White House correspondent no different than male colleagues in the briefing room…. Spicer disputed that he was being patronizing.” [HuffPost]

WE’RE STILL TALKING ABOUT THE WALL, HUH? This is as well-thought-out as the American Health Care Act. Joel Gehrke: “President Trump’s long-promised southwest border wall shouldn’t be built on the American side of the line, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. ‘The border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall,’ Zinke told the Public Lands Council, according to E&E News. ‘The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall? We’re not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we’re probably not going to put it in the middle of the river.’” [Washington Examiner]

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

DELANEY DOWNER – Rexnord Corp. has posted layoff notices inside its Indianapolis ball bearings factory where the company is stopping production so it can be done more cheaply in Mexico. Rexnord has planned to lay off its 300 workers at the plant since last year, but President Donald Trump, who has said repeatedly he would stop American firms from shifting production abroad, criticized Rexnord’s plans in a tweet that raised expectations he might intervene. ‘Evidently, Rexnord must not have read that,’ said Chuck Jones, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999, which represents workers at the closing factory. [HuffPost]

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WROTE THIS TWEET, WHICH IS UNTRUE AND DUMB AND WEIRD – “Remember when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after the election, because their coverage was so wrong. Now worse!” [Twitter]

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MIKE PENCE IS TERRIFIED OF LOSING CONTROL – You know who doesn’t sweat this stuff? People who trust themselves. Ashley Parker: “Now, as second lady, Karen Pence, 60, remains an important influence on one of President Trump’s most important political allies…. Friends and aides, meanwhile, say she is the Pence family ‘prayer warrior,’ a woman so inextricably bound to her husband that even then-candidate Trump understood her importance and consulted her in critical campaign moments…. The Pences were married in a Roman Catholic church in 1985 but later became evangelical Christians. In 2002, Mike Pence told the Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.” [WaPo]

MELANIA TRUMP DOING STUFF – Carol Morello: “In a rare public appearance, first lady Melania Trump took part in a ceremony Wednesday to give the State Department’s International Women of Courage Award to 13 recipients who are political and social activists in their countries. Among the women recognized were a human rights activist from Yemen and a Salesian nun from Syria, two nations whose citizens would not get U.S. visas under President Trump’s revised executive order on immigration. Another recipient was an activist from Iraq — a country that was dropped from a list of seven Muslim-majority countries affected by the original executive order.” [WashPost]

BREXIT IS HERE – Your vacation to England and France just got more annoying. Anushka Asthana, Heather Stewart and Peter Walker: “Theresa May has told parliament that she accepts Brexit will carry consequences for the UK, as a letter delivered to Brussels began a two-year countdown to Britain’s departure from the EU. The prime minister made a speech on triggering article 50 minutes after the European council president, Donald Tusk, confirmed he had received notification. He declared that ‘the UK has delivered Brexit’ nine months after a bruising referendum campaign. [The Guardian]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR – Have you ever seen Lasagna Cat?

AARON SCHOCK DRAMA! The Downton Abbey Downfall just never gets old. John Bresnahan: “Lawyers for indicted former Rep. Aaron Schock claim one of his aides — who was secretly working as an FBI informant — broke the law by stealing information from the Illinois Republican’s personal and congressional files.” [Politico]

Trey Radel has a memoir out, by the way.

COMFORT FOOD

– Firefighter rescues cat stuck up a tree. No, really.

– A ranking of the top Trump-related SNL skits so far.

– The stupid, probably false historical reason men only use one suit button.

– “Uranus Smells Like Farts”

TWITTERAMA

@aparnapkin: The nice thing about having a stressful ride to therapy is the session writes itself

@morninggloria: I Thought I’d Muted You: A Play In Three Acts

@kashanacauley: Someday we’ll be lucky enough to have a president who wants to create more jobs in the ska industry.

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

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WASHINGTON — Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has challenged the credibility of Science magazine — one of the world’s most respected science publications.

“That is not known as an objective writer or magazine,” Smith said during a hearing Wednesday on climate change, which Smith denies.

Smith’s comment came after testimony by Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, who cited a news article published last week about Smith’s attendance at a conference of global warming skeptics hosted by the conservative Heartland Institute. The article’s author, Jeffrey Mervis, called out Smith for using his House committee as a “tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the U.S. research community.”

To Smith’s assertion that Science magazine is not objective, Mann responded, “Well, it’s Science magazine.” Science is a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A spokeswoman for Science told HuffPost via email that the magazine’s news department “follows journalistic principles and strives to be neutral and objective in its reporting.” As for research papers published in the Science family of journals, “various editorial departments employ a rigorous, multi-step, peer-review process, one central to the integrity of the material published,” she said.

Criticism of the magazine by the head of the House committee tasked with overseeing America’s scientific research programs would be shocking if that person wasn’t Smith, who has a long history of denying mainstream climate science, running to the defense of the fossil fuel industry and harassing federal climate scientists.

While Smith apparently doesn’t trust Science, he has been a devoted follower and contributing writer of the hyper-conservative Breitbart news site.

Late last year, as HuffPost reported, the House Science Committee appeared to mock “climate alarmists” in a post to Twitter. The tweet linked to a Breitbart story that argued — incorrectly ― that a short-term drop in global temperatures proved climate change isn’t happening. The tweet drew a response from The Weather Channel, which blasted both Breitbart and the House Science Committee.  

Smith and the committee drew similar criticism in February, when they promoted an article published in the British tabloid The Daily Mail with the headline, “Exposed: How World Leaders Were Duped Into Investing Billions Over Manipulated Global Warming Data.” In his ongoing attempt to make something out of a fake climate scandal, Smith accused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ― yet again ― of playing “fast and loose” with data, and the Obama administration of pushing its “costly climate agenda.”

The study in question, led by NOAA scientist Thomas Karl and published in 2015 in the journal Science (also a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science), found that an apparent slowing trend, or hiatus, in the rate of global warming from 1998 to 2012 was the result of its own biased data. The agency corrected its analysis to account for differences between ships’ measurements and those of more accurate at-sea buoys, which increased the estimated rate of warming over the previous 15 years.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Mann blasted Smith for his attacks on Karl and NOAA, which included issuing subpoenas to obtain communications related to the federal agency’s analysis. He said public attacks on climate climate scientists are “meant to send a chilling signal to the entire research community; that ‘If you too publish and speak out about the threat of human-caused climate change, we’re going to come after you, too.’”

The hearing, titled “Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method,” was billed as a way to “examine the scientific method and process as it relates to climate change.” What played out instead was a back-and-forth debate about whether the vast majority of climate scientists — roughly 97 percent — are correct in their consensus that climate change is real and that humans are the primary cause. 

With the majority party choosing the bulk of the hearing’s witnesses, speakers leaned heavily in Smith’s favor, with three prominent climate skeptics joined by Mann, the minority’s choice, who advocates the urgent need to tackle human-caused climate change head-on.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon) described the hearing as “unproductive,” and said she wished the discussion had on focused finding ways to address the risks of climate change.

“For a balanced panel we’d need 96 more Mr. Manns,” Bonamici said.

Smith said in beginning the hearing that he believes “the climate is changing and that humans play a role.” But “significant questions remain as to the extent,” he said, and “our actions must be based on sound science.” 

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the ranking Democratic member of the committee, said the “long-established scientific understanding of the reality of climate change ends at the doorstep of the Republican National Committee.”

“Even on this committee on science, Republican members have postulated sometimes unique theories about climate change, some of which have become punchlines on late night television,” Johnson said. 

Watch the full hearing below.

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John Kelly was sexually assaulted as a college sophomore in 2012.

Kelly ― who identifies with the pronouns “they,” “them” and “their,” and whose gender does not align with binary male-female gender lines ― told campus administration. Their assailant was subsequently suspended. But because Kelly and their assaulter had socialized in the same queer community at Tufts University, “people stopped talking to me, stopped acknowledging me,” Kelly told The Huffington Post in 2015.

Isolated, Kelly attempted suicide. 

This incident from five years ago sheds some light on the unique experience LGBT students have when they are sexual assaulted ― crimes that typically don’t garner much news coverage. 

“Although LGBT [people] disproportionately experience sexual assault victimization, their assaults are not highlighted in the media,” said Robert Coulter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

Where students attend college may make a difference in how likely it is that they’ll be harassed or otherwise victimized. 

“Campus climates can actually impact at-risk groups,” said Coulter, who is the lead author of a study published this month in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

His research suggests that making college campuses more welcoming for LGBT people could help reduce sexual assaults of queer students. The study defined sexual assault as “intentional physical contact, such as sexual intercourse or touching, of a person’s intimate body parts by someone who did not have permission to make such contact.”

The study, which analyzed 2010 data from approximately 2,000 sexual- and gender-minority college undergraduates in all 50 states, found that there were fewer sexual assaults on LGBT students at schools that students perceived as being LGBT-friendly. (A caveat to consider: People who have been sexually assaulted could be more likely to consider their campus exclusionary or hostile.)

The research also found that students who witnessed harassment of sexual- or gender-minority people on campus were more likely to be the victims of sexual assault than those who did not witness harassment. 

We hypothesize that homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic environments may put LGBT people at greater risk for sexual assault.
Robert Coulter

Queer people are more likely to the be victims of sexual violence than the general public ― for example, a 2015 University of Michigan survey found that LGBT students and students of color were twice as likely to experience sexual violence as their classmates ― but the effect of social environments on sexual victimization hasn’t been thoroughly studied.

“We hypothesize that homophobic, bi-phobic and transphobic environments may put LGBT people at greater risk for sexual assault,” Coulter said. 

Building Campuses That Include Queer Students

If discriminatory and exclusive environments help create a culture of sexual assault, it stands to reason that an inclusive culture could be part of reversing that narrative.

Coulter put forth three hypotheses to explain why inclusive campuses are safer for LGBT students: potential perpetrators may be less likely to target queer students on an inclusive campus; bystanders might be more likely to intervene in the case of sexual assault; and LGBT students could be more empowered to protect themselves against sexual assault.

Resource centers and student groups for sexual- and gender-minority students, in addition to well-enforced anti-discrimination policies, are key elements of inclusive college campuses.

Training faculty, students and staff on sexual orientation and gender identity can also make campuses more welcoming for queer students, the study authors note. Current college sexual assault prevention programs typically don’t include LGBT intervention strategies or concerns ― which Coulter said is an “alarming” oversight, considering that sexual minority students are at a greater risk for sexual assault victimization.

He said he hopes his research can reduce the prevalence of sexual assault against gender minorities on college campuses.

“I hope that this brings attention to issues of policies regarding LGBT people on campuses, and I hope it makes people who are interested in sexual assault prevention and treatment more aware,” he said. “I hope to take my research more toward developing interventions for prevention and treatment of LGBT people and sexual assault.”

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WASHINGTON ― Over the past decade, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has permanently seized $3.2 billion in cash from individuals who were never charged with a crime, according to a Justice Department inspector general report released Wednesday.

Authorities confiscated this money using a controversial process known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows police to take property ― including vehicles, jewelry, houses and, most commonly, cash ― based solely on the suspicion it’s tied to crime.

Law enforcement officials say civil forfeiture is a crime-fighting tool that allows them to target the financial proceeds of illegal activity, even when they don’t have direct evidence of wrongdoing.

But due to lax reporting standards around civil forfeiture, the extent of those benefits is unclear, the report found. It also raised concern about the DEA’s reliance on interdiction operations along highways and at transportation hubs, as well as the agency’s inconsistent policies and training procedures.

Since 2007, the DEA has taken in $4.15 billion in cash forfeitures. Of that, $3.2 billion ― or 81 percent ― involved cases in which no criminal charges were filed. These sorts of seizures, usually made without a court-issued warrant and without the presence of narcotics, carry the highest risk of violating civil liberties, according to the report. With no independent judicial oversight and weak protections for property owners, opponents argue that members of law enforcement routinely abuse civil forfeiture.

The report sought to probe these issues by taking a closer look at how the DEA takes people’s cash. But the authors encountered a roadblock.

The DEA doesn’t “use aggregate data to evaluate fully and oversee their seizure operations, or to determine whether seizures benefit criminal investigations or the extent to which they may pose potential risks to civil liberties,” the report found.

Investigators instead chose to focus on a sample of 100 DEA cash seizures made without a warrant or the presence of drugs. Of these seizures, 85 were part of interdiction activity at transportation facilities or along highways. The smallest seizure involved $3,000 confiscated at an airport.

Only six of these 85 cases were prompted by pre-existing intelligence about a specific drug crime, and most were associated with cold consent encounters, which involve officers approaching people they suspect of involvement in drug trafficking and asking their permission to conduct a search. The inspector general’s office has criticized this practice as being prone to racial profiling.

In over half of the 100 cases examined, there was no discernible evidence the seizures advanced law enforcement efforts, the report found. In only 44 cases could the DEA say conclusively that the seizures had “advanced or been related to ongoing investigations, resulted in the initiation of new investigations, led to arrests, or led to prosecutions.” 

Investigators were also concerned about the lack of uniform training for both federal agents and members of state or local task forces working in cooperation with federal authorities to make seizures.

“While the factual situations vary from case to case, such differences in treatment demonstrate how seizure decisions can appear arbitrary, which in turn can fuel public perception that law enforcement is not using this powerful authority legitimately,” the report read. 

These kind of findings undercut the claim that civil forfeiture is vital as a crime-fighting tool.
Darpana Sheth, senior attorney with the Institute for Justice

Civil asset forfeiture has come under bipartisan criticism in recent years, and support for reform is growing at both the state and federal levels. Critics say the practice infringes on people’s due process and property rights by forcing them to engage in costly legal battles to prove their innocence and recover their assets.

Opponents of civil forfeiture also claim it encourages law enforcement to haphazardly seize property rather than focus on public safety. The inspector general’s report shows some evidence of the DEA pursuing civil forfeiture over-aggressively. Although property owners only challenged 20 percent of seizures over the past decade, nearly 40 percent of the contested cases resulted in a full or partial return of assets.

“These kind of findings undercut the claim that civil forfeiture is vital as a crime-fighting tool,” said Darpana Sheth, senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that believes all forfeiture should be tied to a criminal conviction. “The report reaffirms what IJ has been saying all along, about how forfeiture laws create this perverse financial incentive to seize and forfeit property.”

Congress has considered legislation to reform civil forfeiture in recent years, and the latest report appeared to add some urgency to that effort. 

“Today’s report by the Inspector General makes it clear that asset forfeiture is in desperate need of reform,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “While asset forfeiture is a useful law enforcement tool to fight crime, the current lack of oversight and training poses dangers to Americans’ civil liberties.”

But the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, put into place under President Donald Trump, was critical of the report and described asset forfeiture as a “vitally important law enforcement tool” that had helped “fight the current heroin and opioid epidemic that is raging in the United States.”

A 10-page response to the report from acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco said the Justice Department had “significant concerns” about the final report. Relying upon a review of the 100 DEA cash seizures had led to “inaccurate or misleading” conclusions, Blanco wrote. 

Blanco said the Justice Department was taking another look at a 2015 order from former Attorney General Eric Holder which affected some of the department’s asset forfeiture work by limiting the types of civil forfeiture cases state and local law enforcement could pursue through the federal process.

“The Department is conducting a review of the Attorney General’s 2015 Order to determine all potential negative effects on law enforcement ― federal, state and local,” Blanco wrote. “One key underpinning of that review is that the Department continues to rely on critical cooperation with its state and local law enforcement partners. It is imperative that these partnerships remain strong.”

Both Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions seem receptive to the idea of allowing law enforcement to use civil forfeiture more aggressively after police officials complained that their operations had been scaled back in recent years.

But the inspector general’s office said Blanco’s response indicated he didn’t fully appreciate the civil liberties issues at stake. 

“While we have long recognized that a well-run asset forfeiture program can be an important law enforcement tool, we believe that the Criminal Division’s comments on our report indicate that it has missed a key point: regardless of the importance of the tool, it must be used appropriately, with effective oversight, and in a way that does not place undue risks on civil liberties,” the office responded in a statement.

“We further believe that the Department has an increased responsibility to protect civil liberties when its investigative components use a tool that permits seizure and forfeiture of property without judicial involvement or apparent connection to investigative activity, and then uses the proceeds of that property as a funding mechanism for law enforcement operations,” the statement continued.

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