Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a report “exposing the disastrous consequences” of Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) awarding millions in taxpayer-funded grants to two non-governmental organizations with “radical” agendas.
The report showcases how, as Grassley noted in a statement, the tax dollars Biden’s DOJ gave to the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) and Impact Justice funded “left-leaning agendas that ultimately put lives at risk.”
“This is just a small sampling of the grant programs scrutinized by the Justice Department, but an inspection of these recipients suggests potentially a much bigger problem in how the Justice Department historically has awarded its grant funds,” Grassley said in his introduction to the report.
According to the group’s website, Vera’s mission is to create programs to “end the criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and people experiencing poverty.”
Vera “reportedly received $6.75 million in contracts from the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice” between 2022-2023, Grassley’s report reads, citing InfluenceWatch. In April, the Trump DOJ said it was terminating $5 million dollars worth of grants to the organization on the basis that its activity “no longer effectuate[s] the program goals or agency priorities,” Vera reported.
Later that month, Vera launched an “Emergency Justice Fund,” asking people to give them money directly.
Grassley’s report indicated that Vera also received $25 million from “left-of-center organizations” Blue Meridian Partner, Inc., and the Open Society Foundations. The latter was founded by George Soros, a “left-of-center political donor” who has spent “billions” on political campaigns and organizations “that promote his agenda” in the U.S., according to InfluenceWatch.
“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Vera Institute was awarded millions of taxpayer dollars to prop up left-wing District Attorneys, who would then partner with the Vera Institute to implement Soros-backed progressive policies,” a press release announcing the report from Grassley said. “These policies included prioritizing violent criminals over victims and declining to fully prosecute felony charges – including assault, kidnapping, rape and murder.”
The report also highlighted Vera’s tweets from 2020 that encouraged defunding the police.
Impact Justice spends “billions of dollars annually on systems of law enforcement and punishment” that it claims “perpetuate racism and cycles of harm,” its website says. Impact Justice also oversees the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Resource Center, which ostensibly aims to “eliminate sexual abuse in confinement.” The resource center is funded through a “cooperative agreement” between Impact Justice and the DOJ, according to Impact Justice.
As Grassley said in his report, “training materials produced by Impact Justice advocated for far-leaning progressive reforms peppered throughout what should have been routine safety training courses.”
Impact Justice and the PREA Resource Center also received “$7.45 million by the Biden-Harris administration to help combat sexual abuse in prisons and ensure the integrity of the PREA audit process,” the press release said.
However, Grassley’s report revealed that “PREA audits routinely failed to uncover pervasive sexual abuse” and that the PREA Resource Center “encouraged transgender housing policies
inconsistent with federal regulations.”
“PREA Resource Center training materials endangered women by encouraging the housing of transgender inmates in female prisons. This was done without due regard for inmate safety and in ways inconsistent with federal regulation,” the press release said.
Impact Justice reportedly fired dozens of employees following grant cuts from the Trump administration in April, according to CBS News.
The press release also confirmed that “[t]he Trump administration has since terminated these grants to ensure DOJ awards align with the administration’s stated priorities.”
“The American people overwhelmingly rejected these soft-on-crime, defund-the-police policies in the last election because they undermined the safety and security of their communities. Organizations like the Vera Institute and Impact Justice that promote radical ideology have no business collecting another dime from the federal treasury,” Grassley said in a statement.
“Americans are safer without their influence in the criminal justice system.”