[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-40
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-169 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Chair
MATT GAETZ, Florida SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas, Ranking
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Member
TROY NEHLS, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
LAUREL LEE, Florida STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
Georgia
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
C O N T E N T S
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Thursday, July 27, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime and
Federal Government Surveillance from the State of Arizona...... 1
The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance from
the State of Texas............................................. 3
WITNESS
The Hon. Anne Milgram, Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration
Oral Testimony................................................. 5
Prepared Testimony............................................. 8
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
Crime and Federal Government Surveillance are listed below..... 37
A study entitled, ``Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic
Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010,'' October
2014, JAMA Intern Med., submitted by the Honorable Matt Gaetz,
a Member of the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government
Surveillance from the State of Florida, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government
Surveillance from the State of Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``More than 5 Texans die every day from
fentanyl. A new online dashboard is tracking these
deaths.'' July 15, 2023, Texas Public Radio
Pages from H.R. 4272, The Stop Fentanyl Now Act of 2023
An article entitled, ``Amid overdose crisis, disputes grow
over how to classify fentanyl cousins,'' June 13, 2023,
The Washington Post
A document entitled, ``Quick Facts: Fentanyl Analogue
Trafficking Offenses,'' Fiscal Year 2021, United States
Sentencing Commission
A document entitled, ``Quick Facts: Fentanyl Analogue
Trafficking Offenses,'' Fiscal Year 2022, United States
Sentencing Commission
An article entitled, ``Teen overdose deaths have doubled in
three years. Blame fentanyl,'' March 26, 2023, The Hill
An article entitled, ``Fentanyl is dominating headlines, but
there's a more comprehensive drug problem happening in
Texas,'' June 19, 2023, The Texas Tribune
An article entitled, ``DEA leader calls for crack down on
social media companies amid fentanyl crisis,'' July 5,
2023, Fox 4
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance from
the State of Arizona, for the record
A letter to the Hon. Anne Milgram, Administrator, Drug
Enforcement Administration, April 20, 2023, from the
Honorable Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member, Committee
on the Budget
An article entitled, ``DEA overseas review barely mentions
corruption scandals,'' March 25, 2023, AP News
An article entitled, ``DEA chief faces probe into `swampy'
hires, no-bid contracts,'' April 20, 2023, AP News
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD
Questions to the Hon. Anne Milgram, Administrator, Drug
Enforcement Administration, submitted by the Honorable Mike
Johnson, a Member of the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal
Government Surveillance from the State of Louisiana, for the
record
No response at time of publication.
OVERSIGHT OF THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
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Thursday, July 27, 2023
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
Room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Andy Biggs
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Biggs, Gaetz, Nehls, Kiley, Lee,
Jackson Lee, McBath, Dean, Cohen, and Johnson of Georgia.
Mr. Biggs. The Subcommittee on Crime and Government
Surveillance is called to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on oversight of the
Drug Enforcement Administration. I will now recognize myself
for an opening statement.
I welcome to today's hearing everyone that's here. Glad to
have you here.
The DEA is the Federal agency responsible with implementing
and enforcing the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act.
The CSA regulates the manufacture, possession, use, importation
and distribution of certain drugs, substances, and precursor
chemicals.
The DEA is also responsible for investigating both domestic
and international criminal organizations that seek to move
illicit drugs into the United States. I think there is one that
many of us are concerned with, and that is the transnational
narcoterrorist cartels that control much of our border. All
this is to say that DEA has a very important function.
Unfortunately, last year nearly 110,000 Americans died of
drug overdose deaths. Overdose has become the leading cause of
death in Americans ages 18-45.
I have met with DEA agents and visited and received
briefings in a number of offices around the United States. I
appreciate what DEA agents do. I respect the danger that they
put themselves into to enforce our laws.
I, unfortunately, have to raise a couple of uncomfortable
issues today with our witness, Director Milgram, Anne Milgram.
It has been alleged that there have been no-bid contracts to
her friends and pharmaceutical company consultants and
lobbyists. These questionable actions have been chronicled in a
series of reports from the Associated Press.
A little over three months ago it was reported that the
Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General began
investigating whether Administrator Milgram misused DEA funds
by improperly awarding no-bid contracts to hire past colleagues
and other associates.
According to oversight conducted by Senator Chuck Grassley,
multiple whistleblowers have come forward with credible
allegations of irregular hiring and contracting practices at
the DEA, and these no-bid contracts, totaling more than $4.7
million, were allegedly used for strategic planning and
communication.
We will continue to follow and watch those investigations
with interest and their outcome, and we hope those will be
resolved soon.
I do point out that the left-leaning Project on Government
Oversight commented on these contracts saying, quote:
Some of these deals look very swampy. Contracts should never be
awarded based on who you know.
It has been reported that the DOJ OIG is also investigating
$1.4 million that the DEA paid to two individuals in a sole-
source contract to conduct a review of the department's
oversight of foreign operations.
Again, we will watch and wait for the outcomes of those
investigations, and we will continue to engage in oversight.
While we are here, it's important to know that we've
received information from the OIG that the, quote,
OIG does not object to the department or any department
personnel being fully responsive to any questions that may be
asked during your hearing.
Meaning this hearing today. The OIG cannot account for any
bases independent of the OIG that the department or department
official may have for not responding, but any such description
should not be on account of concerns or objections from the
OIG.
One of our biggest national security threats is the control
of our Southern border by transnational narcoterrorist cartels.
The DEA has an incredibly important task and role in halting
the scourge of fentanyl that is pouring into the country.
I am concerned that the head of DEA has these
investigations going on, but I await, without unnecessary bias,
the outcomes of those investigations. I anticipate that most of
today's questioning will center on fentanyl, because it touches
every district in the country, and what DEA is doing to fight
the Mexican narcoterrorist cartels and China's role in
providing precursor chemicals to manufacture these very
dangerous drugs.
We will continue to watch and await the outcomes of the
investigations and the allegations of irregular hiring and
contract practices, and we look forward to your testimony today
and, Director Milgram, being fully responsive to the
Subcommittee Members' questions.
With that, I'm going to yield and recognize the Ranking
Member from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Certainly, as a Committee with oversight responsibilities,
we are certainly concerned that ongoing investigations be
pursued, followed, and resolved. I see nothing in the
leadership of Director Milgram or President Biden that would
suggest that there would not be an open and continuing
investigation and abided by whatever the resolve is.
I think it is important in this hearing to emphasize the
cruciality of the work of DEA agents. In having worked with
them for more than two decades in terms of as a Member of this
Committee, I know that their work is sincere. Their competence
is at the highest level, and they fight every day to protect
the American people from the scourge of drugs.
I wish we could do something directly, even maybe, Mr.
Chair, with a magic wand, to deal with the demand that
continues to possess those who seek profit around every corner.
So, this Committee deals with the issues of crime, but I
have been here long enough to realize that, as we began my
tenure in the U.S. Congress, crack cocaine were the kings, and
no one was paying attention to any of that, but the DEA because
it was in communities, unfortunately, that were at the lowest
level in many instances of poverty, particularly crack. Only to
the opioid epidemic did we find common ground. I think it is
important to find common ground now because your concern is my
concern.
So, let me begin by acknowledging, Administer Milgram, as
the head of the DEA, you face a herculean task of managing the
flow of illicit drugs across our borders, coping with the
impact of newly developed drugs, and addressing the concerns of
the public health crisis of substance addiction and abuse. With
the administration's whole-of-government approach, your agency
stands at the epicenter of the storm.
This is, at the least, the third hearing this year where
fentanyl policy will be a major subject of inquiry. As a likely
biproduct of interruptions in treatment, recovery, and
prevention services and stress induced by the unprecedented
COVID-19 pandemic, fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances
have emerged as the Nation's deadliest drug threat. Might I
add, the impact that it is having on our youth with the
misrepresentation of pink pills being what they had heard they
were, but now they are immediate, immediate death sentences,
immediate.
Fentanyl is a major contributor to the ongoing opioid
epidemic leading to alarming increases in overdose deaths with
nearly 300 people dying each day of drug overdoses. No
community is safe. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has reported that fentanyl-related deaths accounted
for more than 70,000 of the 107,622 overdose deaths that
occurred in the U.S. in 2021, continuing a two-decade-long
trend of increasing overdose deaths.
In my home State of Texas, fentanyl was linked to more than
1,600 fatal overdoses that year and more than 2,000 overdose
deaths in 2022. Nationally, more than two-thirds of the
reported 107,081 drug overdose deaths in 2022 involved
synthetic opioids, primarily manufactured fentanyl. Despite a
slight decrease in 2022 from the previous year, fentanyl
overdoses remain the leading cause of death for adults 18-45
years old.
To the horror of every parent, as I said earlier, teen
overdoses have been reported in every corner of the country. To
drive home this issue, our March hearing even featured a
witness whose child died of a fentanyl-related overdose.
According to the CDC, more than 2,020 teens fatally
overdosed in the 2\1/2\ year period from July 2019-December
2021, with fentanyl involved in 84 percent of those deaths.
Given its potency, even small amounts of fentanyl can be
lethal, making it particularly dangerous for individuals,
especially teenagers, unaware of its presence in drugs they
receive from friends or from sources on the internet.
Fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances have been found
hidden in and mixed with other illicit drugs, such as cocaine,
heroin, and methamphetamine, and communities of every kind are
being flooded with fentanyl masquerading as prescription drugs.
Teenagers are falling victim to counterfeit pills that are
highly addictive, deadly, and made and marketed by drug
traffickers to resemble authentic, less potent prescription
medications.
We must do all that we can to break the cycle of addiction
and even the needless loss of life in fentanyl and fentanyl-
related substances. This includes making sure that the DEA has
the tools it needs to perform its vital role in combating the
illicit production, distribution, diversion from legitimate
sources, and trafficking of these deadly substances to prevent
their flow into our communities.
In addition to working with this crisis of addiction, the
DEA works closely with local, State, Tribal, territorial,
Federal, and international law enforcement agencies to target
every facet of the illicit drug supply chain and every level of
drug trafficking organizations that threaten the health and
safety of our communities. By targeting international drug-
trafficking organizations to dismantle fentanyl manufacturing
distribution networks, the agency works to disrupt the supply
chain and reduce the availability of dangerous substances on
the streets of America from Mexico cartels, the Indian and
Chinese source precursor chemicals, as well as Chinese money
laundering operations that facilitate the cartel's operation.
To truly address this crisis, we must address the flow of
illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances into the
United States and our communities while also reducing the
demand, which is fueled by addiction to these and other drugs.
That is why I introduced H.R. 4272, the Stop Fentanyl Now Act,
a comprehensive response to the recent surge in overdoses and
overdose deaths that address both the supply and demand for
fentanyl and fentanyl-
related substances. I encourage my colleagues to cosponsor.
Relying on the whole-of-government approach, my bill
integrates law enforcement, interdiction, public health
initiatives, prevention and treatment, and public awareness and
education.
The agency also performs a vital role in educating the
public about the risk associated with fentanyl and raising
awareness about the potentially fatal consequences of its use.
The outreach includes efforts directed at teenagers and young
people with a focus on prevention and deterring
experimentation.
Director Milgram, I hope you can expand on the DEA's One
Pill Can Kill campaign and discuss its impact on targeted
groups. As one advocate said recently, community outreach must
be outside the box, while another pointed out that there is no
comprehensive education, prevention, or early intervention
happening at the Federal level or at the State level.
The DEA's involvement is essential to enforcing the
Controlled Substances Act, curbing the availability of
fentanyl, fentanyl-
related substances, and ultimately reducing the devastating
impact these substances have on communities, particularly among
vulnerable populations like teenagers.
The statistics have shown that, again, the most
incarcerated persons around the fentanyl issue are African-
American men. So, we must find a way to fight and fight hard,
but we must also find a way to deal with the question of
justice.
As fentanyl-related overdoses and overdose deaths continue
to occur at a frightening pace and African Americans are
becoming the face of a second national wave of overdoses, the
DEA is essential to addressing the crisis of addiction, abuse,
and overdose death.
I look forward to a constructive exchange on Federal drug
policy at today's hearing and yield back.
Mr. Chair, I thank you, even as we are in our third
hearing, for a hearing on this important topic, and I look
forward to this Committee being enormously constructive in the
fight against this scourge and this deathly death sentence for
our people here in this Nation.
Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you.
I now will introduce--oh, excuse me.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
I will now introduce today's witness, the Hon. Anne
Milgram. Anne Milgram is the Administrator of the Drug
Enforcement Administration and was sworn into this office on
June 28, 2021. We welcome our witness and thank her for
appearing today.
We will begin by swearing you in.
Would you please rise and raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
Ms. Milgram. I do.
Mr. Biggs. Let the record reflect that the witness has
answered in the affirmative. Thank you.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. I've read your memo.
Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five
minutes.
Do we have the yellow and the red light on this? OK, so
you'll see, when you get down to one minute, the yellow light
will come on, and at five minutes, the red light will come on.
There's nothing drastic that will happen, but we would just ask
you to wrap up as close to the five-minutes as possible.
With that, Ms. Milgram, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ANNE MILGRAM
Ms. Milgram. Thank you, Chair Biggs and Ranking Member
Jackson Lee, and good morning to Members of the Committee.
Americans today are experiencing the most devastating drug
crisis in our Nation's history. It is like nothing that we have
seen before. This is because one drug, fentanyl, has
transformed the criminal landscape. Fentanyl is cheap to make,
easy to disguise, and deadly to those who take it. Just two
milligrams, the equivalent of a few grains of salt, can kill a
person.
Fentanyl, as has been noted, today is the leading cause of
death for Americans between the ages 18-45. More deaths than
terrorism, more deaths than car accidents, more deaths than
cancer, more deaths than COVID, and it is killing Americans
from all walks of life. In every State and in every community
in this country, fentanyl is killing nearly 200 Americans each
and every day.
The drug cartels responsible for bringing fentanyl into
this country are transnational and extremely violent
enterprises. They rely on a global supply chain to manufacture
and traffic fentanyl, and they rely on a global illicit
financial network to pocket billions of dollars from those
sales.
At DEA, we have undertaken a transformation of our own to
meet this moment. We have transformed our vision. We are now
laser-focused on the criminal organizations that are
responsible for flooding fentanyl into our communities, the
Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels. We have transformed our plan.
We have built an entirely new strategic layer with two
counterthreat teams, one for Sinaloa and one for Jalisco. These
teams are made up of special agents, intelligence analysts,
targeters, data scientists, subject-matter experts in chemistry
and finance. Just recently, we built a third counterthreat team
devoted solely to the illicit finance, the money laundering of
these two cartels.
These teams centralize all of DEA's intelligence. They are
mapping the cartels. They are analyzing these criminal networks
that now exist in more than 40 countries, and they are
developing targeting information on the members of those
networks wherever they operate across the globe.
We have also transformed our execution. We are drawing on
the talent and expertise of the men and women of DEA in our 334
offices worldwide, and we are working as one DEA to defeat
these criminal networks. We are also actively targeting every
single aspect of the global fentanyl supply chain.
We have made all these changes in the last two years to
save lives, to stop fentanyl, and to defeat the two drug
cartels that are responsible for bringing fentanyl into our
communities and killing Americans, and we are already starting
to see results.
In April, we announced indictments against the network that
is primarily responsible for the massive influx of fentanyl
into the United States, the Chapitos network of the Sinaloa
Cartel. The Chapitos pioneered the manufacture and trafficking
of fentanyl into the United States, and they control a global
criminal enterprise that has killed hundreds of thousands of
Americans.
So, we proactively targeted the Chapitos and their entire
network, from their chemical suppliers in China to their
fentanyl manufacturers and smugglers in Mexico to their
distributors across the United States. The indictments we
announced in April charged 28 members and associates of the
Chapitos networks, and nine members of that network have now
been taken into custody, several of them overseas, and the
extraditions have begun.
We didn't stop there. In May, we announced the results of
Operation Last Mile where we tracked down and arrested 3,337
associates of the Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels who were
operating here in the United States. We've identified that
those two cartels are using social media and encrypted apps and
are using these members or associates of the cartels across the
United States to get fentanyl into the hands of individuals in
our community. They are solving the last mile problem for the
cartels.
Again, these cartels are hiding fentanyl in fake pills that
look like oxycodone, xanax, percocet, and adderall. They're
also mixing it with cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, all
to induce Americans to take fentanyl without knowing it and to
drive addiction.
Last month in June, we announced operation killer
chemicals, three cases in which we charged four Chinese
chemical companies, eight Chinese nationals. Two of those
Chinese nationals are now in American custody, and we charged
them for knowingly providing customers in the United States and
Mexico with precursor chemicals and the scientific know-how to
make fentanyl. Those are the first-ever charges brought against
fentanyl precursor chemical companies in China.
The 10,000 employees that I have the privilege of working
with at DEA are the most committed and mission-driven people in
Federal law enforcement. They are laser-focused on one goal: To
save American lives. Every day they risk their lives for this
mission.
I ask for Congress' continued support of our work. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of the Hon. Milgram follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony.
I'm going to recognize now the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Nehls, for five minutes.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Administrator Milgram for being here. I'm a 30-
year lawman. I was an old sheriff in Fort Bend County, Texas,
and spent a great deal of time working with the DEA through the
HIDTA program.
For those on this Committee, those watching, if you don't
know what HIDTA is, it stands for High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area or Program. It was created by Congress with
the Antidrug Abuse Act of 1988 and provides assistance to
Federal, State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies
operating in areas determined to be critical drug trafficking
regions in the United States.
It's administrated under the Office of National Drug
Control Policy under the Executive Office of the President.
There are currently 33 HIDTAs across the 50 States, and there
are four of them in the great State of Texas.
I think the one I belonged to is the most successful. I
believe you're familiar with Mr. McDaniels. I spoke to him
yesterday. He wanted me to tell you hello, but he said he wants
his quarterly reports. He hasn't been receiving his quarterly
reports, so get those quarterly reports to him, if you don't
mind.
According to the website, the DEA plays a very active role.
You have like 1,500 or so authorized special agents dedicated
to the program. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. I'd have to get back to you on the specific
number, but yes, we have a large number of agents that work on
HIDTA across the United States.
Mr. Nehls. Quite a few. Great. Great.
So, I want to ask you a few questions to educate myself and
other Members of this Committee as it relates to what HIDTA
teams are doing for the American people. So, how do HIDTA teams
play a role working with local jurisdictions to combat the
fentanyl crisis?
Ms. Milgram. So, first, I would say, Congressman, that in
addition to my current role, when I was the State Attorney
General for the State of New Jersey, I had the privilege to sit
on two HIDTAs, both the New York HIDTA and the Philadelphia
HIDTA, and so I've had experience throughout my career on
working with HIDTA, and it's an incredible organization that
brings together State, local law enforcement with Federal law
enforcement, everyone working as a team, sharing information.
Right now, we're working across the country with HIDTA.
Some of the cases I just described to you have been done by
HIDTA enforcement groups. What we are doing is very actively
trying to pull together through our counterthreat teams. They
are located--there's a global one now in Virginia. We are
locating them also in all our regional field divisions. So, by
the end of this year, we'll have counterthreat teams in every
field division.
The idea is to be able to share our current information on
those two cartels with HIDTA and then action--facilitators,
associates, and members of those cartels who we know are
operating in the United States.
Mr. Nehls. You mentioned in your written testimony--you've
got eight pages. No talk of HIDTA in here at all. I'm surprised
there wasn't even a paragraph in there about HIDTA, but talked
about the Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels. Texas is faced with
threats, obviously, bordered near Mexico, from other cartels.
What's the rationale with focusing on just those two?
Ms. Milgram. So, one of the things we did when I came in
was look at who is responsible, who is most responsible for the
American deaths that we're seeing, and we very quickly
identified that it is these two major cartels in Mexico. They
are the largest cartels. In some instances, they do work with
smaller cartels, like the Gulf Cartel or the Northeast Cartel.
We also track them because we know they are working with those
larger cartels.
Right now, the CDC reported today, for 2022, 110,511
Americans have died from drug poisoning. So, we have to be
relentlessly focused on the people most responsible.
Mr. Nehls. Is there a more dangerous drug than fentanyl out
there that my residents, district members in Texas are
concerned about more than fentanyl?
Ms. Milgram. Can I answer that in two ways? First by saying
widespread fentanyl is the deadliest drug in the United States
of America that we have ever faced. What we are tracking and
what we are concerned about is that we have now shifted to
synthetic and manmade drugs.
Mr. Nehls. Right, right.
Ms. Milgram. The only limit on that and what can be created
are the chemicals that can be purchased.
So, today fentanyl is the deadliest drug, but I want to be
clear in saying we are actively tracking all this to make sure
that there is not a deadlier drug that gets created.
Mr. Nehls. Are there any other plans, are there any plans
at all to move HIDTA from the Executive Office of the President
to another department? OCDETF? Anything? Separate planning. Is
there any plan to do any of that? There are rumors.
Ms. Milgram. I have not heard that rumor.
Mr. Nehls. Beautiful.
I'd say one issue I have, with my short time left, I see
that your budget requests $7 million for zero-emission
vehicles. I do believe that you could take that money and spend
it elsewhere tackling the most devastating drug crisis in the
history of our country.
So, I want to thank you for your time. Please, Mike, again,
Mr. McDaniels, would like those reports. Thank you for being
here.
I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady, the Ranking Member
from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Good morning.
Let me just start again where I mentioned a few things that
I had in the opening statement, and let me acknowledge both Mr.
Johnson and Ms. Dean and thank them for their presence here
today, and our colleagues here, Mr. Chair, on the other side of
the aisle.
Addiction is the bane of our existence, and that is a light
word. Demand. Can you just succinctly tell us the crucial
aspect that is playing as we go forward in fighting, in
essence, using an old-fashioned term, in this war that has to
include bringing down demand and then warring with those,
unfortunately, who intend to do evil?
Ms. Milgram. Thank you, Congresswoman.
What I would describe this as right now is a fight to save
lives because we are losing Americans every single day.
In terms of demand, I think that what we are seeing with
these two cartels is different than what we have ever seen
before. So, we acknowledge and understand that there are
Americans who have substance use disorder and may be seeking
controlled substances, narcotics.
What we are seeing now is that these two cartels are making
fentanyl, which is deadly and deadly in tiny amounts, and the
cartels are acting with calculated, deliberate treachery to put
that fentanyl in other products. So, they are making, mass
producing--last year DEA seized 58 million fake oxycodone
pills, pills that were meant to look identical to real pills
but, in fact, are fentanyl and filler. They are marketing them
and branding them as though they were the real thing. So, they
are driving demand in our view.
They are also cutting fentanyl powder into other drugs, as
you noted, into cocaine, into heroin, and they are selling
those drugs as if they were cocaine or heroin. So, fentanyl is
being cut into everything, and it is being put into these fake
pills.
So, what we believe is happening is that the cartels care
about relentless expansion to make more money, to make billions
of dollars. So, they are using the most addictive drug that the
United States has ever seen, and they are hiding it in other
drugs, and they are branding it as though it were legitimate
prescription drugs to drive demand because the more people who
take it, the more--it's 50 times stronger than heroin, a
hundred times stronger than morphine--the more likely people
are to become addicted and buy again.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Let's talk about the fight. My time is short. Can you
succinctly describe the lab that the DEA has set up?
Ms. Milgram. Yes. So, we have recently set up a new lab. We
have nine labs. We have a new lab called the Joint Intrepid
lab. That is in EPIC. It's in El Paso, Texas, right now. We
have set that up with--we asked FDA and Customs and Border
Patrol to join us. It is a fentanyl profiling lab with the idea
being that we will immediately test fentanyl as quickly as we
can, as it gets seized at the border, so we can determine who
is responsible for making that fentanyl, what it is made up of,
and also have an early warning system for future drugs. It will
help our investigations. It will help our cases.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Convince the American people that you are
fighting the cartels with every might that you might have. As
you do that, the incarcerated kingpin, El Chapo, his work
doesn't depend on high migration, low migration, border
conditions, et cetera. He is the type of work cartels are doing
are merciless, murderous, and with a large imprint that goes no
matter what's going on. We have to get the cartels. Is that my
understanding?
Ms. Milgram. I could not say it more clearly that our top
priority is to defeat the cartels, and I believe that's what we
have to do.
I will say to you that there is nothing that DEA will not
do to protect the American people from what we are facing with
fentanyl. We're using every authority we can, and we are
tracking these two cartels in more than 40 countries around the
globe.
They are vast criminal organizations, and one thing I think
is really important is we targeted and arrested El Chapo. That
was a DEA case. We have now pivoted to not just do the heads of
the organizations but to target the entire supply chain,
starting in China, going to Mexico, coming into the United
States, and then the illicit finance.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me ask you this. How devastating is
the online sales that penetrates into our younger population or
everyone? The pink pills, how devastating is that, and how
important it is to have legislation or to have Congress help
you fight the online pill sales?
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady's time has expired, but you may
answer the question.
Ms. Milgram. Thank you.
We see social media right now as the superhighway of drugs.
It is one of the ways that the cartels are using to reach out
to every single community in the United States of America, to
reach young people. There are more than 100 million Americans
on social media, and so it is a very simple, largely anonymous
way for them to reach people, and they are also using it to
conduct their own business operations.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Good morning and welcome. Thank you for being here
with us today.
So, we've talked a lot this morning about fentanyl, and I
want to be sure that we also take a moment to focus on the
other significant responsibilities of DEA and the other work
that you do as well. I know in my home State of Florida, one
thing that DEA has long been dedicated to doing is fighting
Colombian drug trafficking organizations and some of what they
bring through maritime channels.
Would you tell us a little bit about DEA's ongoing efforts
in that regard?
Ms. Milgram. Yes. Thank you.
So, we remain focused on narcotics trafficking across the
globe, and one of our biggest offices remains in Colombia
because what we see, Congresswoman, is the organizations in
Colombia are not just sending some cocaine directly to the
United States. They are increasingly sending it through those
two cartels.
So, we are tracking Colombia, Peru, many other countries in
South America where cocaine is being produced and is being
brought to the United States through all different ways, often
in connection with these two criminal cartels that now sort of
control the drug markets in the United States.
So, rest assured we maintain vigilance on this, and we work
very closely, as you I'm sure know, with our partners in the
Coast Guard and other law enforcement folks all along the coast
of Florida.
Ms. Lee. I also want to followup on something that my
colleague, Mr. Nehls, touched on earlier, and that is DEA's
work alongside and in partnership with State and local law
enforcement agencies. Would you describe for us how and why
that is an impactful effort by DEA and what that provides to
local communities in terms of community safety?
Ms. Milgram. Yes. So, I could not begin to say enough about
the men and women of DEA who are out in the field and our State
and local partners. We also have a large number of task force
officers that come to us from police departments and sheriffs'
offices and State police that work hand in glove with us. Then
we just have strong partnerships throughout the State of
Florida and throughout the country.
We could not do the work we do without those partnerships
and without the sharing of information back and forth. Part of
what we have been working on internally at DEA is to figure out
how can we share even more information. How do we empower local
law enforcement. We've also worked very closely on violence
reduction work, something we call Operation Overdrive. We've
done it in a number of Florida communities.
It's very important to us that we partner with locals to
say who are the most dangerous individuals related to drug-
related violence and drug poisoning deaths and then to work in
cooperation together to attack that threat.
Ms. Lee. Thank you.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the
Chair.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you very much.
Ms. Milgram, my first question is going to deal with the
border. So, do you have agents that are watching Mexican
plazas?
Ms. Milgram. We have agents that are stationed across all
the Southwest border areas, and we do work around Mexican
plazas, yes.
Mr. Biggs. OK. So, that leads to the question of, we know
that most illicit drugs are interdicted at the ports of entry,
and that's because, obviously, we have personnel there. We have
eyes on. We have contact. We have the technology to basically
scan a vehicle. We have the technology to determine density
readers. We've got dogs who can sniff for drugs and actually
humans that are coming across.
What's DEA's role in interdiction at the ports of entry?
Ms. Milgram. So, let me say it from a high level and then
come down to the specifics. We are very focused on the entire
global supply chain, starting in China, going to Mexico, coming
to the U.S., and the Southwest border is a critical part of
this conversation because the vast majority of fentanyl is
coming across the Southwest border.
As you say, our understanding is mostly through ports of
entry right now in California and Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. That's where most of it's interdicted. Not most
of it comes through ports of entry. You would agree with me
that most of it is coming between the ports of entry where we
don't have any personnel. We don't have the one on one. We
don't have the capacity to actually interdict between ports of
entry.
Ms. Milgram. So, we did a case earlier this year,
Congressman, the Chapitos network investigation, and what we
learned from doing that investigation and have charged in the
Southern District of New York is that the Chapitos were
bringing drugs, fentanyl into the United States by any means
they could. By land, by sea, by air, through underground
tunnels, across the Southwest border, using trucks, using
cars--
Mr. Biggs. Are they still catapulting? They used to
catapult the drugs--
Ms. Milgram. We did not have that in that specific case. To
your point, I think we're seeing every sort of--the cartels
will stop at nothing to get fentanyl into the U.S. because
that's how they make more money.
Mr. Biggs. Right.
The reason I bring that up is because I think too many
times people think because we seize a lot at the ports of
entry, we forget that there is a massive, wide-open border.
Now, I could take you down there and invite you to come
with me sometime. Don't bring staff. I don't bring staff. I'll
just drive on down there, go by myself, and it's wide open. I
can drive for hours without seeing CBP agents because most of
them are pulled off doing something else.
My time has expired, so I thank the gentlelady for yielding
to me.
I recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good to be with you, and thank you for your work, for the
work of your 10,000 colleagues on this extraordinarily serious
issue, and you always bring to it that gravity and the
seriousness of it.
I had the opportunity to be with you at the Rx Summit in
Atlanta, alongside my son, Harry, who suffers from substance
use disorder and, as you know, is 10 years in recovery. He and
I have talked about it with honesty, with candor, that if he
were in active addiction today, his life would have been in
grave peril. We know that. We're losing friends, sons, and
daughters in my district. So, I thank you and your colleagues.
In your remarks that were extraordinary at the Rx Summit,
which echo, of course, much of what you said today, you talked
about how much fentanyl is on the ground in the United States
right now. Can you speak to that?
Ms. Milgram. Yes. It was a privilege to hear you and Harry
speak at the Rx Summit and to hear your story.
Ms. Dean. Thanks.
What we're seeing, last year DEA seized the equivalent of
almost 400 million deadly doses of fentanyl, and that's 58
million fake pills made to look like OxyContin, and then about
13,000 pounds of powder. What that means--and we're seizing it
in every community, from coast to coast and every community in
between.
This year already, year to date, we have seized 46 million
fake pills containing fentanyl. We have seized more than 200
million deadly doses already in 2023. It has permeated the
entire United States and the entire drug supply. Again, we're
seeing it not just in pills, but also powder that's then being
cut into cocaine and heroin and methamphetamine.
So, this is one of the reasons why we spend a lot of time
on doing public awareness, public education, and also
interdicting, because we know every single deadly dose we get
off the street is potentially a life saved.
Ms. Dean. Talk about that last mile and the staggering
number of arrests, but, obviously, there's much more to do
because there's so much on the ground. How do we interrupt that
last mile?
Ms. Milgram. So, one of the things we've done is we have
now stepped back, and we are mapping these two cartels across
the globe and across the United States. So, we have been able
to identify not just the members of those cartels, but the
facilitators, the wholesalers, the money launderers, and also
the people in our communities that are that last mile, that are
getting that fentanyl into the hands of an American.
Some of that, as I said, almost 600 of our cases, about
1,100 of those were cases that we did in that operation over a
year. About 600 of them involved social media and encrypted
applications.
So, we know that this sort of last mile is the way that the
cartels are using individuals across our communities to get
those drugs to Americans. Often, as we all know, within two
clicks someone can be delivering a pill that a young American
or an American is being told is oxy, Percocet, or Xanax is
being delivered to their front door. They take half a pill or a
whole pill, and they die, and there are no second chances.
To be really clear, those pills are being mass-produced in
Mexico. The fentanyl is being mass-produced in Mexico. So, in
that community, when that ends up on someone's doorstep, the
person who has purchased it has no idea often that there's
fentanyl in it or how much fentanyl.
Again, we're seeing people die at catastrophic and
devastating rates.
Ms. Dean. Absolutely. I want to be clear; you don't have to
be an addict to suffer a fatal overdose. Young people just
experimenting, thinking they're buying percocet and they're
not.
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Ms. Dean. I guess I would like to understand a little
better what DEA does to confront in a global way the financial
networks. How do we interrupt those?
Ms. Milgram. So, one of the things we did is we started
these two counterthreat teams that are focused on these two
cartels across the globe. We started to see connections across
the globe and particularly connection with illicit finance.
One of the things we talk a lot about is the fact that
we're also seeing a lot of Chinese money laundering from the
drug cartels in the United States. It has pivoted now to be
largely driven by Chinese money laundering.
So, as we started to pull together all our information
across our 334 offices, we realized very quickly that we needed
to build a third team that is devoted solely to illicit
finance. So, we are tracking billions of dollars across the
globe. We are tracking cryptocurrency. We are tracking money
going from the cartels to Chinese chemical companies.
You will see in the months ahead extensive work that we are
now doing around illicit finance. I couldn't begin to say how
important it is. It's also very time consuming. We are
fortunate, the IRS has just given us an 1,811 agent to help us
do some of this financial work. We have asked for other law
enforcement agencies and components to give us additional
financial expertise. We have some, but what we are now seeing
with these billions of dollars moving globally is that as many
people and many resources as we can put on this, we will
uncover more and more billions of dollars, and I think this is
a critical way to attack the cartels.
Ms. Dean. Absolutely.
I thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging the end of that
answer.
Mr. Biggs. Absolutely.
Ms. Dean. Thank you for your work. I stand ready to
continue to work with you in any way that I can.
Ms. Milgram. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. So, one reason people die from fentanyl is
because they get addicted to opioids and get poisoned, right?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Gaetz. One reason that people get addicted to opioids
is because they get prescribed opioids and that prescription
turns into an addiction, right?
Ms. Milgram. So, I would absolutely say the beginning of
the opioid epidemic started with unlawful prescribing.
Mr. Gaetz. Not everyone, but that's a pretty large swath of
the problem.
One of the reasons people get prescribed opioids is to deal
with chronic pain, right?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Gaetz. Throughout the country, there are people who use
medical marijuana to treat chronic pain as an alternative to
opioids, right?
Ms. Milgram. I know a number of States have passed laws,
yes, related to medical marijuana.
Mr. Gaetz. So, I guess my question is this: Why has the
Biden Administration not taken marijuana off the list of
Schedule I drugs?
Ms. Milgram. So, Congressman, as you know, the President
had sent a letter to the Secretary of HHS and to the Attorney
General to ask for the scheduling, descheduling process to
begin. It's now with HHS. They are in that process. They start,
then they send it to DEA. We have not received it yet.
Mr. Gaetz. That's encouraging.
When do you expect to receive that recommendation from HHS?
Ms. Milgram. I have not heard of a timeline from them, so I
don't know.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, that's unsettling, isn't it? When you
don't even know a timeline, it doesn't really make it seem like
something that is front of mind.
Ms. Milgram. We have constant conversations with HHS and
with FDA, but we have not been given a specific timeline.
Mr. Gaetz. Will you leave this briefing and encourage HHS
to give you a timeline on getting that information to you?
Ms. Milgram. I will ask.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you.
When you receive the work product from HHS, is there any
basis that DEA would have to oppose the descheduling of
marijuana as a Schedule I drug?
Ms. Milgram. So, the way the scheduling process works under
the law and the regulations is HHS does a review. They then
send it to DEA. We then do what is known as an eight-factor
review. There's an opportunity for public comment as well. So,
we go through that part of the process.
So, obviously, we start with what HHS has provided us. We
then go through our own review and the public comment process,
and then we come to a scheduling decision.
Mr. Gaetz. Just share with me, with the country what your
perspective is on what the outcome of that should be.
Ms. Milgram. Well, because--I couldn't prejudge it at this
point in time. I have not seen--
Mr. Gaetz. Do you have a personal view on whether or not
marijuana should be a Schedule I drug?
Ms. Milgram. As the head of the DEA, I will ultimately be
responsible for signing off on what the scheduling is.
Mr. Gaetz. Will you consider in the analysis that's being
done the studies that pretty extensively show that, in States
where there is medical marijuana access, there is a lower rate
of prescribing these opioids that then can lead to addiction,
which then can lead to the deaths that we've seen?
Ms. Milgram. You have my full commitment, Congressman, that
I will keep an open mind. I will look at all the research. I
expect that we will get additional public comment or research
that comes in, and I will look at all of it.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent to enter
into the record a study conducted by two Ph.D.s, Marie Hayes
and Mark Brown, that looked at the prescribing of opioids in
States with medical marijuana programs and, indeed, found that
States with medical cannabis laws had a 24.8 lower mean annual
opioid overdose mortality rate.
Mr. Biggs. Without objection.
Mr. Gaetz. I really hope we get this done. We're two years
into the Biden Administration, and I honestly had hoped that by
now we would have already descheduled marijuana from the
Schedule 1 list.
Maybe talk to me a little bit about the challenges that DEA
has in this patchwork system where marijuana is Federally
illegal, but then hemp is allowed under the farm bill, and
you've got people operating under the color of law in all these
States. Doesn't that seem like the least effective way to go
about this?
Ms. Milgram. If I could speak more generally about our
diversion program, which is the unit that controls all the
scheduling, all these questions you're raising. This is an
important part of our work at DEA right now is to look at the
existing regulations and the existing processes.
Mr. Gaetz. It's hard, right. I just want to draw from you
the obvious admission that different States having different
programs and then the Federal Government having an incongruent
regulatory system with the hemp law and Schedule I being
maintained, that this is confusing.
Ms. Milgram. We deal with it, Congressman, all the time,
even--
Mr. Gaetz. It makes it harder, right? The fact that its
patchwork does probably make the job of DEA agents harder.
Ms. Milgram. Even look at xylazine right now, which is
something we're having conversation about, is lacing fentanyl.
Certain States have now moved to schedule xylazine. It has not
yet been scheduled in the Federal Government. So, these are
challenges we face all the time.
Mr. Gaetz. I will just also add there's a huge research
potential to unlock if we get this right, and I certainly hope
that we do. I appreciate your commitment to guild the lily at
HHS and get that work product in your hands.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr.
Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I'd like to incorporate by reference all Mr. Gaetz'
questions. I agree with him totally on where we are.
I've been here 17 years, and it's not your fault, but I
have seen DEA heads. I've seen FBI directors. I've seen
attorney generals sit exactly where you're sitting and say
governmental gibberish about marijuana. They have done nothing
for 17 years and for years before that, and it goes back to the
1930s, and the government has messed this up forever.
You need to get ahead of the railroad. You're going to get
something from HHS. Biden understands it should be
reclassified. He said from 1-3. It ought to be classified from
1-420. We ought to just clean it up and get over with it.
Fentanyl was Schedule I-Schedule II. It's been a Schedule
II drug for a while, and fentanyl substances have been Schedule
I since 2018. Since we changed it, we've had an increase of 460
percent increase in fentanyl traffic offenders. For related
substances, it's been up 208 percent.
Obviously, changing the rating, the scheduling, and raising
it doesn't stop the use. It's popular. There's money to be
made.
You caught El Chapo. You put him in prison. His sons took
over the operation. There are rats that replace the big rats.
It happens in the drug trade. You've got to have a better
answer. You've got to do something different, or this is going
to go on until your great grandchildren are sitting in this
Chair as DEA head.
What do you think is the best way to stop, first,
marijuana? Just is there anything you can do to expedite your
process by starting some of the laborious, tedious, time-
consuming roles put in front of you by doing them now before
HHS gives it to you?
Ms. Milgram. Unfortunately, Congressman--and I understand
the frustration on the timing. We, our process, is triggered
when HHS sends a recommendation to us, and so that will trigger
it.
What I will say to you, not specific to marijuana but just
overall, is that I am committed on trying to move things as
quickly as we can at DEA overall.
Mr. Cohen. I'm going to help you. I'm going to call the
Secretary, who is one of my colleagues. I'm going to call him
today, and we're going to get this moving.
Now, tell me, on fentanyl, I'd like to stop that, too.
That's the scourge. The Republicans had a bill. I didn't think
it was necessarily the answer. I felt bad about voting for it
because I hate what fentanyl has done to so many people and
such a killer.
What seems to be your main target is going after these two
gangs. Well, you're going to have new gangs after that. Is
there a better way to do it than just taking out one gang and
then letting the new gang come up and be around when your great
grandchild is in your job?
Ms. Milgram. So, if I could, Congressman, when I came in,
we had a largely high-value target focus, meaning we were
focused on El Chapo, who the leaders of those criminal
organizations were. That is an important thing to do.
In my assessment over the first months that I was in
office, it's not enough for the exact reason you say. We took
El Chapo out of Mexico. He's incarcerated for the rest of his
life on those charges, and his sons took over, and they
transformed his criminal business to be fentanyl.
This is harder now than it's ever been because this is
chemical drugs, and so the only limit--there are no growing
seasons. There is no transportation from Colombia to the U.S.
There is literally just a question of how many chemicals these
criminal organizations can get. Then, if there is an unlimited
amount of chemicals, there's an unlimited amount of fentanyl.
So, we have transformed the way we work to do the entire
criminal network. Starting in China, where the vast majority of
precursor chemicals are coming from, we just charged four
Chinese chemical companies for the first time ever, eight
Chinese nationals, two of whom are in custody.
Transporting that to Mexico, we're focused on that
transportation work. We do some of that in partnership with
other Federal partners.
In Mexico, we're focused on the people who are mass-
producing the fentanyl, the chemists, the cooks, the people who
run the labs, the security apparatus and the assassins, the
people who transport it into the United States, the associates
and facilitators who are working in the United States, and then
the entire global money laundering arm.
So, we are focused on the entire network now. We know this
model is effective because it will allow us to attack the
vulnerabili-
ties, and we're making progress. We have a lot of work to do. A
single American death is unacceptable, and so we have a lot
more work to do, but I do believe that focusing on the entire
network and being strategic in understanding that network and
understanding how that network is changing and how the sort of
smaller networks is coming up will, long-term, put us in the
best position.
Mr. Cohen. I'm almost out of time.
Do you need more money?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir. Always.
Mr. Cohen. How much more money do you need?
Ms. Milgram. Whatever funding we're given, I promise, I
commit to you we will use to save American lives.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Kiley.
Mr. Kiley. Good morning, Administrator Milgram.
You testified today that Americans are experiencing the
most devastating drug crisis in our Nation's history. Am I
correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Kiley. You pointed out that, in 2022, more than 110,000
people in the United States lost their lives to drug
poisonings, correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Kiley. You also noted that fentanyl is now the leading
cause of death for Americans between the ages 18-45.
Ms. Milgram. That's correct.
Mr. Kiley. So, it's precisely because I agree with you and
because we are in such a crisis right now that I find some of
your priorities as DEA Administrator to be puzzling, and I'm
concerned about the effect of some of your personnel and
contracting decisions on the capacity of the DEA to carry out
its mission, and the morale of DEA employees.
So, let's start with Louis Milione, if I'm saying that
correctly.
Ms. Milgram. Milione.
Mr. Kiley. Milione. OK.
He recently resigned as second in command at DEA amid
revelations that he did consulting work for Purdue Pharma. Is
that correct?
Ms. Milgram. What I would say--and first, let me say I
believe that we have the best men and women in the U.S.
Government.
Mr. Milione came back with me as the Principal Deputy. I
asked him to come back, and he had agreed to a two-year term of
service, which he fulfilled. So, I would not connect those two
things.
Mr. Kiley. You did ask him to come back?
Ms. Milgram. I did.
Mr. Kiley. At the time, did you know about his work for
Purdue?
Ms. Milgram. He informed me before he came in, yes.
Mr. Kiley. He did. So, you were aware that he did $600 per
hour consulting work for Purdue Pharma?
Ms. Milgram. Well, I wouldn't say I was aware of the
specific details.
Mr. Kiley. The general nature of his work.
Ms. Milgram. What I understood, Congressman, is that he had
done work for law firms that had prepared an expert report
while they were representing Purdue Pharma.
Mr. Kiley. Well, he prepared the report. He was the expert.
Ms. Milgram. Doing work for the law firms, yes.
Mr. Kiley. Purdue has pleaded guilty to various criminal
charges?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Kiley. Correct. That Mr. Milione's report was generally
favorable toward Purdue. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. I have not reviewed the report.
Mr. Kiley. OK. You were aware that he was hired by the firm
that was representing them?
Ms. Milgram. When I was nominated to come in, I asked the
question of many former agents, current agents, prosecutors who
the best DEA agent in America was, and the answer I got
repeatedly was Lou Milione.
Mr. Kiley. That didn't seem like a conflict to you, his
work for Purdue?
Ms. Milgram. He alerted me before he came in of that work.
There is a longstanding recusal process at the United States
Department of Justice--
Mr. Kiley. Right, but I mean--
Ms. Milgram. --and an ethics review--
Mr. Kiley. --just in general, you don't think it was a
conflict for him to be there at all?
Ms. Milgram. I believe in the recusal and ethics process at
the Department of Justice. I relied on that. He was never once
in any conversations or meetings related to Purdue.
Mr. Kiley. OK.
Let's talk about the report, the foreign operations review
conducted by Wilmer Hale. Why was this not done in-house?
Ms. Milgram. So, one of the things that I found when I came
in is that going back a decade or two, there had been a series
of reports and internal reviews at DEA and, also reviews by the
inspector general related to our foreign work. What we hadn't
done is stepped back--we just turned 50. We hadn't stepped back
in almost 50 years to ask the question; how can we do our
foreign work most effectively?
Mr. Kiley. You wanted an outside perspective, a more
independent perspective?
Ms. Milgram. We wanted the perspective of both prosecutors
and law enforcement of, again, going back to the--
Mr. Kiley. Why did you do it outside rather than in-house?
Because you wanted it to be independent?
Ms. Milgram. --going back to the conversation we started
this morning, so much of our work is based on foreign criminal
cartels, and so we wanted individuals who understood the value
of our foreign work, as well as--
Mr. Kiley. You didn't have any such people in-house?
Ms. Milgram. We absolutely do, and those people in-house
worked with the foreign review team very closely.
Mr. Kiley. Did you offer this contract as a sort of--did
you do a bidding process, or did you just give it to Wilmer
Hale?
Ms. Milgram. It was a sole source contract.
Mr. Kiley. Are they the only law firm in town? Or why did
you go just right to them?
Ms. Milgram. What I would say is, when we started this
process of trying to understand what we were looking at and how
to sort of take a global view of it, one of the questions we
asked was who had worked on DEA international cases. Boyd
Johnson, who I met during--after I had been nominated, I was
introduced to him.
Mr. Kiley. Did you talk to Preet Bharara about hiring
Wilmer Hale?
Ms. Milgram. I did not.
Mr. Kiley. You did not.
That's a close friend of yours, Preet Bharara. Is that
correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, and he and I worked together on Capitol
Hill, and then we had a podcast together.
Mr. Kiley. One of the--and a podcast.
One of the review's author is Boyd Johnson, who is a close
associate of Preet Bharara. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. They currently work together now. At the time,
I did not know Boyd Johnson. I was introduced to him by others
when I was going through my confirmation process.
Mr. Kiley. Sure, but he has that relationship with Preet
Bharara.
Ms. Milgram. If I could, Congressman, Boyd Johnson led the
International Narcotics Unit in the Southern District of New
York, which is where we do the bulk of our bilateral
investigation's unit work.
Mr. Kiley. I see here that Jack Lawn, the other author of
the review, apparently worked for an industry group that funded
research by your mother. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. I believe in the late 1990s my mom worked with
Jack Lawn for a brief period of time. This is--
Mr. Kiley. Preet Bharara, where does he work now?
Ms. Milgram. Congressman, may I continue?
Mr. Kiley. I'm sorry. I'm short on time.
Where does Preet Bharara work now?
Ms. Milgram. He works many places.
Mr. Kiley. Which law firm?
Ms. Milgram. He's now at Wilmer Hale.
Mr. Kiley. You also hired as your Deputy Chief of Staff
someone from Wilmer Hale as well, right?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, we have--
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired. You may answer
the question.
Mr. Kiley. Did you think this cast doubt on the
independence of this review, all these connections between you
and Wilmer Hale?
Ms. Milgram. Congressman--
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired. You may answer
the question.
Ms. Milgram. May I answer?
Mr. Biggs. Yes.
Ms. Milgram. Thank you, sir.
The work that has come out of the foreign review has been
transformational for DEA. We have changed the way we operate,
and they had made very important recommendations to us:
(1) Reduce silos between the foreign and international work
that we do.
(2) Increase accountability.
(3) Make sure that every piece of foreign work is directed at
saving American lives.
So, we've already implemented a number of changes. I'd be
happy to show them to you at some point in time, but I do
believe very much that the value of that review has been
exceptional.
Mr. Biggs. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Georgia, Ms. McBath.
Ms. McBath. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Administrator Milgram. I have read your
testimony. Thank you for coming before the Judiciary Committee
to testify, and we do appreciate your time and your willingness
to share today with us all this information.
Administrator Milgram, you know as well I do, that the Drug
Enforcement Administration plays an essential role in
protecting our neighborhoods from dangerous substances. The men
and women of this agency do work diligently, as you've been
explaining to us today, to disrupt the networks of the drug
cartels and to bring justice to those that are trafficking
these harmful substances to our communities.
I'm not an attorney on this Committee. I'm not an attorney
on judiciary, but I am a mother. So, I agree that these efforts
that you're putting forth and others are truly essential. When
raising my son, Jordan, I made sure to surround him with
friends and family who I knew were going to really provide a
loving and supportive environment for him. There are countless
mothers like me that are still doing their part. They're doing
the same thing.
The unfortunate reality is that opioids, like fentanyl,
continue to seep into our communities and into our homes and
into the bodies of those that we love and care for. Countless
mothers like me, like myself, are paralyzed by the threat of
these substances and the threats that they pose to our children
and our loved ones' well-being.
Can you please illustrate the supply chain of fentanyl-
related substances, and how they are reaching American
neighborhoods? I really would like for that to be clarified
from, but definitely from initial manufacturers to the dealers,
and that sell these deadly products. Please clarify that for
us.
Ms. Milgram. Thank you, Congresswoman.
I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the critically
important substance of DEA's work. I would share your concern
as a mother. I will tell you; we have the opportunity to meet
with families all the time who have lost loved ones, who are
out in communities trying to raise public awareness. We now
have the faces of more than 5,000 Americans whose lives were
lost to drug poisoning that line the walls of DEA headquarters.
I routinely walk past those faces. I see the faces of America,
and they're often moms, dads, brothers, and sisters who are
there. So, I could not agree more of how vital this is.
The supply chain that we see right now begins in China with
precursor chemical companies that are producing chemicals that
are essentially the building blocks of fentanyl and also
methamphetamine. Those chemicals are then being shipped to
Mexico or to other locations in Latin America and then brought
into Mexico, where they are being cooked, essentially, using
recipes to make fentanyl. So, the vast majority of fentanyl
that is coming into the United States is being mass produced in
Mexico.
First, it is produced as powder, and then it is pressed
into pills. Some of it does come across the border as powder.
Some of it comes across the border as pills. Most of those
pills are made to look like the small blue oxycodone 30
milligrams that are coming into the United States. As I said
earlier, we know from our investigative work and the evidence
we have in cases that the cartels are pushing the fentanyl
across the border through every way.
Once it's in the U.S., there are a series of hubs that the
cartels generally use to bring the fentanyl in, and it's coming
in polydrug, meaning they're bringing in fentanyl with meth,
with cocaine, often with heroin, and then it goes into our
communities.
Ms. McBath. Am I correct in stating--because I want to
clarify this for the record--that 90 percent of fentanyl from
Mexico seized in the United States was discovered at legal
entry points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not illegal
crossing routes. Am I correct?
Ms. Milgram. I think that CBP statistic is, of all the
fentanyl that has been seized at the border across the United
States DEA seizes--because we seize and we're working in
communities across the country, we seize across the United
States. So, I wouldn't say that 90 percent of DEA seizures is
at the border, but I've read that same piece of information.
That's the Customs Border Patrol information of the fentanyl
crossing the Southwest border. They've reported that 90 percent
is coming through the ports.
Ms. McBath. Thank you. I have one more question for you.
Many of my colleagues on the other side are tempted to use the
fentanyl crisis as a way to demonize immigrants. So, these are
some of the same families that we live along every single day.
Their children are in our classrooms, and as a Representative
to one of the most diverse districts in this Nation; can you
please clarify to the Committee who exactly traffics these
products into our communities?
Ms. Milgram. I have also read the CBP reporting on this,
that it is mostly Americans crossing the border with fentanyl.
What we see across the United States is we see cartel members,
obviously, who are working across the United States,
facilitators and associates. Then the last mile individuals are
people in communities across the United States, often
Americans, sometimes others.
Ms. McBath. Thank you. I'm out of time.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, recognized.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Administrator Milgram, you've led a distinguished career
starting out with clerking for a Federal District Court Judge.
After that, you became an Assistant District Attorney in the
Manhattan District Attorney's Office; is that's correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Then, after that, you went to work
for the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the
United States Department of Justice. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. You served as the special
litigation counsel for human trafficking and led the
department's human trafficking prosecutors. Is that correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thereafter, you became counsel to a
United States Senator?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Is that right?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, Senator Corzine.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. After that, you became acting
Attorney General for the State of New Jersey?
Ms. Milgram. Yes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thereafter, you became the Attorney
General of the State of New Jersey and served with distinction.
Then you went into the private sector, worked for a
foundation for a number of years. Thereafter, you became a
Professor at New York University School of Law. Now, you find
yourself as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement
Administration.
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. During your long and illustrious
career, you've had the opportunity to meet people and to assess
their worth and their ability to contribute to this war on
fentanyl that you are engaged in at this point. Is that
correct?
Ms. Milgram. Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Also, I want to commend you for
your zero tolerance of sexism and racism within the DEA, which
used to have a reputation as a good old boys network. I want to
thank you for that. You brought new people in and you embarked
upon this war to help save the lives of so many people in this
country.
Can you tell me the difference between the war on fentanyl
versus the war on crack cocaine waged by the DEA back in the
80s under that good old boy network?
Ms. Milgram. So, Congressman, first, thank you for the
opportunity to address this. When I came in, in 2021, the
United States had seen, in 2019, 70,000 Americans had died from
drug poisoning in 2019. In 2021, when I came in, almost 107,000
Americans had died from drug poisoning. My very clear
assessment is that we were going in the wrong direction very
quickly and that the cartels had evolved, and we needed to
transform the way we work. We needed to look at this problem
with fresh eyes, with clear perspective, and have the best and
brightest leaders, the best team we possibly can have, and
transform from the way we operated to working strategically
across the globe to essentially defeat what is a global threat.
We have hired and promoted more than 900 people since I
came in. We have built 25 new positions, including an associate
administrator position to oversee our business operations. In
addition to the counterthreat teams, we built geospacial teams.
We built all the capacity that I believe a modern law
enforcement agency needs to have to be effective, to work with
strategy and precision. At every moment--and I want to be as
clear as I can be on this--I've acted with urgency. Americans
are dying. If we wait a year to act, we know the cost of that
is 110,000 American lives. So, we've transformed our vision,
our team, and everything we can.
In terms of what is different now, fentanyl has transformed
completely the criminal landscape. It is a global fentanyl
supply chain. There is nothing we have ever seen that is close
to what fentanyl is. Again, I would say a big part of that is
because of the chemical nature that these cartels are now
manufacturing drugs out of chemicals. As I've said, the only
limit is the number of chemicals they can get. They are now
building that expertise to create fentanyl in labs across
Mexico.
So, when we start to look at this, it's coming into the
United States, and we have to be focused on what's happening in
our country because Americans are dying. My very strong view is
that to be effective, we have to attack every single part of
that supply chain. We have to go after as aggressively as we
ever have the money that is going back to the cartels, the
money laundering that we are seeing happening right now, the
Chinese money laundering organizations. We are seeing this--and
I would welcome any Member of this Committee who wants to come
out to the counterthreat teams where we could show you in more
depth what we're seeing on illicit finance, but it is a
spiderweb across the globe of crypto-currency and billions of
dollars.
So, in our communities--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Cryptocurrency?
Ms. Milgram. Cryptocurrency. We still see traditional money
laundering, but there's a very big shift of cryptocurrency. So,
this is an entirely different piece that we're seeing. The
other piece that is dramatically different, Congressman, is
that--
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired. I'll let you
continue, but need you to wrap up quickly.
Ms. Milgram. Sorry. Very quick. Is that the level of
treachery and deception that the cartels are using to try to
get Americans to take fentanyl, by hiding it in these fake
pills, by cutting it into cocaine, heroin, or meth, and not
telling people that it's there.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. Thank you for your
service.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired.
I recognize, now, the Ranking Member, Ms. Jackson Lee, for
some unanimous consents.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Let me
submit into the record Texas Public Radio: ``More than 5 Texans
die every day from fentanyl. A new online dashboard is tracking
these deaths.'' U.S. drug overdose deaths hit a record in 2022,
as some States see a big surge. DEA leader calls for crackdown
on social media companies amid fentanyl crises.
I'm submitting into the record the summary of H.R. 4272, my
legislation, the Stop Fentanyl Now Act of 2023, which focuses
on crackdown as well as creating outreach policies to educate
the public even more about the devastation and the
dastardliness of fentanyl.
Unanimous consent for The Washington Post: ``Amid overdose
crisis, disputes grow over how to classify fentanyl's
cousins.'' Fentanyl has been dominating headlines, but there is
a more comprehensive drug problem happening in Texas.
Finally, from the fentanyl trafficking offenses Quick Facts
document Fiscal Year 2022, this was fentanyl trafficking,
introduce this particular document that represents the
demographics of the utilization of fentanyl and offenders. Two
documents are here, Mr. Chair. I ask unanimous consent. Thank
you.
Mr. Biggs. Without objection, so ordered.
Now, I'll recognize myself for some unanimous consents. A
letter from Senator Chuck Grassley, dated April 20, 2023;
another article, AP News, dated April 19, 2023; and also
another piece dated March 24, 2023.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Biggs. I now recognize myself for five minutes for
questioning.
Again, thank you for being here today. As part of our
oversight, I want to point out that, prior to your appointment
as Administrator, the DEA provided U.S. intelligence and
resources to former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Genaro
Garcia Luna, despite credible evidence Garcia Luna was working
with the Sinaloa Cartel. Garcia Luna has since been convicted
of his crimes. The reason I bring it up is that Senator
Grassley I know has asked for DEA records of Garcia Luna's
criminal activity to aid Congressional oversight, a letter
dated February 22, 2023, and one dated June 28, 2023.
No response has been given. I'm asking if you would please
respond, and then I'd like a copy of what you provide. When
might we expect a response?
Ms. Milgram. Congressman, I'll check on the status of that
letter, and of course we'll send you a copy of the response.
Mr. Biggs. Can you impose a self-imposed action item
deadline for us?
Ms. Milgram. Sir, it goes back and forth between the
Department of Justice and DEA. So, we will work as
expeditiously as possible to get back to you.
Mr. Biggs. Maybe a week?
Ms. Milgram. I will--
Mr. Biggs. At least give me hope.
Ms. Milgram. I will give you hope, and I will tell you that
I will prioritize it.
Mr. Biggs. Very good. On July 25 of this year, there was a
high-level meeting held in Mexico to discuss efforts to disrupt
fentanyl trafficking. We had a whole series of U.S. personnel
and agencies represented there, but I noticed quite--that DEA
was not mentioned in the press release related to that. I
wondered if someone was there from DEA, and if not, why not?
Ms. Milgram. I believe the Deputy Attorney--I have not
looked closely at the press release, but I know the Deputy
Attorney General was there, has been in Mexico, was there as
recently as yesterday, representing the entire Department. So,
DEA, ATF, and FBI she would be representing us.
Mr. Biggs. So, I would imagine that you guys might have had
somebody there because I know you have people on the ground in
Mexico. So, I was kind of surprised not to see you listed
independently because, even though you're working across
agencies, interagencies, I would have thought you would have
been there for that.
Additionally, Senator Grassley conducted an investigation
that revealed DEA broke protocol, slow-walking some indictments
of Los Chapitos. So, it resulted in a month-long delay. My
question is: Is his investigative report accurate? Have you
seen that report?
Ms. Milgram. I have not seen that report, but if I could
speak to this overall? I think it's worth touching on just for
a minute, which is, when I came in DEA had numerous cases
against the Chapitos, as did other Federal law enforcement
agencies; 2011, 2014, 2019. No one had charged the Chapitos or
their network with fentanyl trafficking. Given that we believe
they are one of the largest trafficking organizations for
Sinaloa, we believed it was important that we proactively
investigate not just the Chapitos, which we had already charged
and investigated for cocaine and methamphetamine and marijuana
previously, but that we go after them as well and their entire
network for fentanyl. That's how ended up with charging 28
individuals.
Mr. Biggs. His investigation also indicates that Mexico was
not notified of the indictments. Is that accurate? I mean--
Ms. Milgram. Congressman, let me be very clear in saying
this: We have had provisional arrest warrants on the ground in
Mexico since 2011, 2014, and 2019 for the arrest of the
Chapitos. When I came in--
Mr. Biggs. All these Chapitos?
Ms. Milgram. The main Chapitos that were charged in other
districts, yes. When I came in, I also worked with the State
Department to increase the reward on those provisional arrest
warrants based in Mexico.
Mr. Biggs. So, if I understand from your answer, you're
telling me that Mexico had been informed of the indictments
then?
Ms. Milgram. Mexico had been informed of prior indictments.
Our indictment was ongoing.
Mr. Biggs. OK.
Ms. Milgram. So, we would not inform them until we charged
the case. Obviously, now we have informed them and given
provisional arrest warrants down.
Mr. Biggs. OK. I was pleased to hear you testify earlier
today that you have stood up kind of, I guess, a business--I'm
going to call it is a business interruption task force--because
I do think that's one of the key components if you want to ring
in, you have to dis-incentivize the cartels.
What tools do you need that you don't think you have? I
view this as kind of a quasi-RICO type of operation? Are you
using forensic accountants? What problems do you have, both
with the Mexican Government and also with U.S. financial
institutions who are facilitating money laundering operations,
even some of our Nation's biggest banking operations?
Ms. Milgram. So. Just starting with tools, yes, we need
more tools.
Mr. Biggs. My time has expired, but you can answer.
Ms. Milgram. We need more tools, and we need more
expertise. We need accountants. We need financial experts. We
need linguists. I'd very much like to see us build noncareer
paths to get expertise in. When we think about tools, one of
the things that I am very focused on is not having all the
tools at our Special Operations Division, but actually getting
those tools out to the field. So, this is one of the things I
think is critical for us to do over the next year is to get the
men and women doing the investigations as many tools we can.
I'd like to get them data scientists. I'd like to get them
accountants and financial experts. You touched on one of the
most important things, which is we have to setup our government
to do the work that needs to be done to interdict these
billions of dollars.
Mr. Biggs. So, I'll close, and I thank you for being here.
I can tell you that I'd be much more amenable to shifting $7
million to these types of personnel than I would for hybrid
Priuses.
With that, thank you for being here. This meeting is
adjourned.
Ms. Milgram. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:22 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
The record for this hearing by the Members of the
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance is
available at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?Event ID=116283.
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