The Daily Signal - How US Marshals Rescued 39 Missing Children in Georgia

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

The U.S. Marshals Service found 39 missing children in Georgia over two weeks in a mission called Operation Not Forgotten. The rescued children “were considered to be some of the most at-risk and challenging recovery cases in the area,” the agency said. How did Georgia state officials work with the Marshals Service to rescue these children, many of whom were being sold for sex? Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss. We also cover these stories: Georgia's secretary of state says that 1,000 voters double-voted in the state's primary election.  Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is the subject of a new investigation by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.  The U.S. has its lowest numbers of coronavirus cases since June.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, September 9th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Recently, the U.S. Marshal Service found 39 missing children in Georgia over two weeks in a mission called Operation Not Forgotten. Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr joins me on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

Now, onto our top news. The Secretary of State in Georgia says that 1,000 people double voted in Georgia's primary. Those who voted twice in the June 9th primary committed a felony and will be prosecuted, Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger said on Tuesday. A double voter knows exactly what they're doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law. Raffensberger said during a press conference at Georgia State Capitol. Those who make that choice to gain the system are breaking the law. and as Secretary of State, I will not tolerate it.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is the subject of a new investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by New York Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney. Maloney announced the investigation Monday under allegations that DeJoy reimbursed some of his former employees at the North Carolina Company New Breed Logistics for making financial contributions to GOP candidates. David Young, Newbreed's former Human Resources Director, told the Washington Post that Lewis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money, we gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses. Maloney has called for DeJoy's immediate suspension under the allegations and under claims that

the Postmaster General may have lied to Congress about his financial actions. In a statement, Maloney wrote, if these allegations are true, Mr. DeJoy could face criminal exposure, not only for his actions in North Carolina, but also for lying to our committee under oath. We will be investigating this issue, but I believe the Board of Governors must take emergency action to immediately suspend Mr. DeJoy, who they never should have selected in the first place. DeJoy was asked about the allegations by Representative Jim Cooper, a Democrat of Tennessee, during his House Oversight Committee hearing on August 24th, and responded to the claims, that's an outrageous claim, sir, and I resented. The U.S. has had its lowest numbers of coronavirus cases since June. Johns Hopkins University released

data finding that 24,000 new cases were found on Monday, with 267 deaths, and over the past week, there have been an average of more than 37,000 U.S. cases reported per day that Hill reported. The CEOs of nine pharmaceutical companies signed a joint pledge on Monday, vowing not to unsafely rush a COVID-19 vaccine. The pledge states that a vaccine will not be made available to the public until after a rigorous phase three clinical trial is completed. Companies to sign the safety pledge include Astrozenica and Johnson and Johnson. The CEOs write, we, the undersigner's biopharmaceutical companies want to make clear our ongoing commitment to developing and testing potential vaccines for COVID-19 in accordance with high ethical standards and sound scientific principles.

And the pledge continues on saying a vaccine will only be submitted for approval or emergency youth authorization after demonstrating safety and efficacy, through a phase three clinical study that is designed and conducted to meet requirements of expert regulatory authorities such as FDA. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr on how the U.S. Marshal Service found 39 missing children in Georgia over two weeks in a mission called Operation Not Forgotten. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda.

agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr. It's great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Rachel, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be on. Well, thanks for making time to be with us. So I'd love to talk about what happened recently. The U.S. Montoral Service recently found 39 missing children in Georgia over a two-week period in a mission of theirs called Operation

Not Forgotten. So can you start off by telling us about what Operation Not Forgotten was? Absolutely. So Operation Not Forgotten was designated to locate and recover missing and endangered children in Georgia and beyond, including some that were known to be victims of sex trafficking. So the important thing from my perspective is there were 39 missing child recoveries, of which 15 we know are suspected of being sex trafficking victims. So those children's lives are going to be forever changed, and it's as a result of the partnerships that we really created. And I commend the U.S. Marshal Service, the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,

our new human trafficking prosecutions unit, but also the nonprofits that are there to help rehabilitate the kids. And that's children's health care of Atlanta. It's wellspring living. Great partnerships. But that's what happens when you have good partnerships and you rescue children. We had mentioned sex trafficking. And I know a press release from the U.S. Marshal Service said that the missing children who were found were considered to be at some of the most high risk and challenging recovery cases in the area.

So along with sex trafficking, can you tell us what some of those other high-risk cases were? Absolutely. So you had cases where children were being exploited. You had sexual abuse. You had physical abuse. You had some children that either had medical or mental health conditions. So in some form or fashion, they were high risk. They had been identified by local law enforcement, by agencies or others, and were given to the Marshal Service to

to make sure to check in on their well-being or, and again, in some cases, rescue and recover. So it was a broad-based operation. And, again, some of our most vulnerable children that were rescued, recovered, and made sure that they were safe. Can you kind of give us a little bit of a perspective or look behind the scenes into how an operation like this is successfully executed, what kind of things go into the background and then the execution to do something incredible like this. Sure, and I don't want to get too much into the details of the specifics,

but from a high-level perspective, it takes a lot of preparation, it takes a lot of coordination. Again, between local agencies and state agencies, we had the Department of Family and Children's Services, for example, that were a part of it and had concerns about some of the children that may have been in their purview. We had local law enforcement and others that had. had identified and provided the names to this group and for this operation. But at the end of the day, it takes coordination, it takes preparation. You know, the children that were found in this particular operation were anywhere between

three and 17 years old. Many were found in Georgia, but others were found as far north as Michigan. Some is down in Florida, as far west as Oklahoma, and even a couple were identified as being overseas. So that takes preparation, coordination, logistics. Again, you need law enforcement. You need nonprofits to be able to care for the needs of the children that are found. So it's an operation.

But the end of the day, partnerships, collaboration, and coordination between these agencies was critical. You mentioned partnerships from different agencies and services, state and local. What can you tell us to about how your office was involved in this operation? Absolutely. So we have a new human trafficking prosecutions unit. A year ago, July, we started, due to the support of Governor Brian Kemp and the First Lady who have made human trafficking a priority for the state for them personally. Our legislature funded it. So we have started in September of 2019 with 16 members that include a couple of prosecutors, an analyst, a victim advocate, and an investigator.

And for this particular operation, we were in on the front end of it to make sure that particularly as it relates to human trafficking and the suspected human trafficking victims, that law enforcement were helping us hold accountable those that were abusing children. So making sure that we had the right evidence, making sure from a legal perspective for the cases that would be brought in state court in Georgia that we did it the right way, that we provided guidance, we provided our investigator was a part of it as well. So really a seamless transition between state, federal, and local law enforcement. And to be in on the front end from our team's perspective is invaluable. Because, again, we've got to make sure that we not only indict, but we convict those that are abusing our children that are buying and selling children for sex. On that no, Attorney General Carr, we've talked about how some of these children were rescued due to sex trafficking. There were victims of that at child exploitation. sexual abuse, other different conditions.

How widespread when we look at the problem of child sex trafficking is this issue? Well, unfortunately, it's one of those crimes that hides in the shadows. It's very hard to get the data for exactly, you know, how many children have been abused. But this is one of those just crimes against humanity that's a moral, it's just morally abhorrent. And so I've always said one child that we rescue from a life of being abused and traffic for sexual purposes is a good day. In this particular case, we had 15. But the point is, there are more. And oftentimes Atlanta and Georgia is seen, why aren't you a hub for sex trafficking?

Well, it's hard to know where we fall in the line because, as I said, it's hard to get the data. But they're sex trafficking all across the state of Georgia. They're sex trafficking all across the country. And it's a global problem. But I do know this. When you start putting resources together like we have, you've got the state that is now committed to a human trafficking prosecution unit. When you've got focused through our Georgia Bureau of Investigation, I've said it before.

When governors and presidents make issues, issues it matters. President Trump has made this an issue and has put resources through the federal government toward this issue. Ivanka Trump has become the point in the administration. I mentioned before Governor Brian Kemp and the First Lady, the First Lady has created a commission called the Grace Commission that's bringing all the experts to the table to say, what are we doing and what do we need to do next and what do we need to do better? That shows the importance of this issue and the focus on this issue because it's very difficult

to find out what the specific numbers are. We're trying to all do better to coordinate so that we are data-driven and we are evidence-based, but at the end of the day, again, one child that's being abused like this where we can come in and make a difference and rescue them and hold accountable those that are committing these atrocious crimes as good as far as I'm concerned. On a similar note, Attorney General Carr, as an Attorney General of a state, what is your message to other states as well as other attorney generals about the importance of operations like this one? Well, the beauty of this initiative and what has happened on the issue of sex trafficking and

human trafficking is it's brought everybody together. I mean, this is an issue. where attorneys general talk about this issue, coordinate on this issue, collaborate on this issue. At the national level, regionally, there are conversations that are being had because, again, we all recognize the horrific nature of what we are dealing with. So in my background, I came from the department, I was the Commissioner of Economic Development, where you had good success, the more people worked together on an issue because no one agency had everything that was needed or any one city or one state. But when you start leveraging the resources that each of us have, you start having great outcomes. And that's what you see here. You see law enforcement working

together, again, in a regional basis, in a national type platform. But you also see attorneys general. You see others. You see governors working on this issue. And the other important piece of this really is training and education and awareness in the private sector. Because the more eyes we have on this issue, the more people feel like they can contact law enforcement and say, hey, this just doesn't look right when you see an older adult and a child and they're not making eye contact or something just seems out of place. It would be better to be wrong than let one more child be in a situation where they're being abused. And so this has just become an issue that's gotten into the national consciousness, the national conversation, and that's a good thing because we don't

need children to be abused. The average age of a sex trafficking victim is a 12 to 14 year old girl. girls. It's also boys. I mean, that's a sixth to an eighth grader. They shouldn't be in a situation where they're being bought and sold for sex. And, you know, they should be in school. They should be playing sports. They should be on the theater on the stage. They should be partaking and things that are fun for those in middle school and early high school to be doing. They shouldn't be abused. And so this is just one of those issues that everybody's come to the table. And that's a good thing. You had mentioned the importance of training people in the private Are you doing any particular things on that?

And if so, what does that look like for you guys as you reach out to those in the private sector? Oh, we are. And this is a great example. I mean, just give you two private sector examples. One, Delta Airlines, which is headquartered in Atlanta. They have committed as a company to be the eyes in the sky. They're training all their flight attendants. They've been absolutely fantastic.

We've got UPS also headquartered in Atlanta that is spearheading truckers against trafficking, doing training programs. And when you think about it, Delta Airlines flies all around the world, flies all around, obviously, the United States. They have a reach that's unbelievable. UPS is in every neighborhood in the world. And so when you train all of your drivers to be aware of the red flags as a relates to trafficking, that's a good thing.

The state of Georgia, the First Lady, has implemented a training program for all state employees. Our office works with nonprofits like Wellspring Living and street grace through to coordinate trainings with our criminal justice coordinating council at the state level also with the GBI so there's a number of training programs people can get either through industry through nonprofits or through the state of Georgia because again if we could have all 10.6 million Georgians aware of this issue again we will be a lot more successful in protecting children. As we wrap up here I did want to ask you all are super busy and I just wanted to

ask and see if your office, if there's anything else you all are working on that you'd like to highlight as the Attorney General of Georgia, would love to hear about that. Sure. Well, let me just see. From Operation Not Forgotten, we have five arrests already and other investigations that are going on as it relates to sex trafficking, and we anticipate that other arrests will be made. And so that relates specifically to that. But I told you, our human trafficking prosecution's unit is only a year old, but, you know, in the one year they've been up and really fully staffed and operational. We've placed 18 victims already in rehabilitation centers, such as the states receiving

Hope Center, which is operated by Wellspring Living. We're working cases in 11 of Georgia's counties. We've already indicted five traffickers and have eight ongoing investigations, and we're about to add another prosecutor to the team. So we feel very good about where we are, but I think the future is a future is a lot of bright as it relates to rescuing victims. And if you are committing acts of sex trafficking, whether you're a buyer or a seller in Georgia, you need to think twice about it because we're coming after you. Well, Attorney General Carr, thank you so much for joining us. There's been

so much bad news lately, and I feel like this is such good news that everyone can really be encouraged by. So thank you for joining us and speaking with us and sharing. Absolutely. Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate your interest on this issue. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and now IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and have five-star rating on Apple podcast and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members

of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For For more information, visitdailysignal.com.