Acting FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bowdich testified last week that the Obama administration gave the order to purge more than 500,000 names from the background check database. The database, titled the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, is used to stop people with certain criminal convictions or open arrest warrants from buying guns.
Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bowdich said, “It was the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that reviewed the law and believed that it needed to be interpreted so that if someone was a fugitive in a state, there had to be indications that they had crossed state lines.” Without that indication, the DOJ does not consider someone a fugitive. Speaking about the record purge, he said, “That was a decision made under the previous administration.”
