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Special Report: How the Trump administration secured a secret supply of execution drugs - Reuters
(Reuters) - If the Trump administration carries out the first federal execution since 2003 on Monday, as scheduled, it will mark the culmination of a three-year campaign to line up a secret supply chain to make and test lethal-injection drugs, a Reuters investigation has found.
Intent on enforcing the death penalty, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice had started building the network of contractors it would need by May 2017, federal procurement records show. Since then, it has pursued a new drug protocol that could survive legal challenges through firms whose identities it has fought to keep hidden. Without the secrecy, the government has argued in court filings, its ability to procure the drugs would be “severely impaired” because the companies are not willing to supply or test execution drugs if they are publicly identified.
So co-founder Michael Pruett was surprised to learn from a Reuters reporter that his firm had been testing drugs that the Justice Department planned to use in lethal injections of condemned prisoners. The vials containing 50 milliliters of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate, began arriving at his firm for testing on April 9 of last year, according to laboratory records included in Justice Department filings.
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The drugs came from a regular customer, a compounding pharmacy.
I didn't know Trump was blood thirsty but I guess this proves that point.
(Reuters) - If the Trump administration carries out the first federal execution since 2003 on Monday, as scheduled, it will mark the culmination of a three-year campaign to line up a secret supply chain to make and test lethal-injection drugs, a Reuters investigation has found.
Intent on enforcing the death penalty, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice had started building the network of contractors it would need by May 2017, federal procurement records show. Since then, it has pursued a new drug protocol that could survive legal challenges through firms whose identities it has fought to keep hidden. Without the secrecy, the government has argued in court filings, its ability to procure the drugs would be “severely impaired” because the companies are not willing to supply or test execution drugs if they are publicly identified.
So co-founder Michael Pruett was surprised to learn from a Reuters reporter that his firm had been testing drugs that the Justice Department planned to use in lethal injections of condemned prisoners. The vials containing 50 milliliters of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate, began arriving at his firm for testing on April 9 of last year, according to laboratory records included in Justice Department filings.
=========================================================
The drugs came from a regular customer, a compounding pharmacy.
I didn't know Trump was blood thirsty but I guess this proves that point.