Liar and Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen has not been held accountable for her role in the state-sanctioned kidnapping of vulnerable children at the southern border, but that could very well change soon. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon has officially called on the FBI to open a perjury investigation into Nielsen, after a leaked memo showed that she lied to Congress about the policy.
“Nielsen has long denied there was a policy to separate families; during testimony in front of Congress in December, she said, ‘We’ve never had a policy for family separation,’”the Washington Post reports. But the memo, obtained by Merkley’s office last week, showed “high-level administration officials” were plotting how to deter migrants at the border in 2017, and included stealing kids from their parents as an option. “The second item on the list is a policy to ‘separate family units.’”
“Despite this fact,” Merkley said in a statement, “while testifying under oath before the House Committee on the Judiciary, Secretary Nielsen stated unequivocally ‘I'm not a liar, we've never had a policy for family separation.’ In light of these conflicting facts, the FBI should immediately investigate whether Secretary Nielsen’s statements violate 18 U.S. Code § 1621, 18 U.S.C § 1001, or any other relevant federal statutes that prohibit perjury and false statements to Congress.”
Nielsen is a liar, but we knew that already. “We have the secretary of Homeland Security absolutely denying all of this, under oath, to Congress,” Merkley told CNN's John Berman. “I am just sick and tired of this administration lying to the American people, lying to Congress, doing it under oath, and it’s time for real accountability.” Merkley said that the FBI has not yet responded to his request, but that "this is the official, right way to initiate a referral to the FBI for pursuit of an investigation regarding perjury."
The request for an investigation comes as another leading Democratic senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois, has called on Nielsen to resign, following a government watchdog report stating that the number of children stolen from families at the border might never be known. Children currently in detention, meanwhile, remain separated from their families, in violation of a court order. This has been a crime against humanity—and Nielsen has been square in the middle of it.