The senior-level ATF officials defrauded taxpayers, falsely certified government documents and retaliated against whistleblowers.
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are demanding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) take immediate corrective action to hold accountable two senior ATF bureaucrats who cost taxpayers millions by illegally misclassifying administrative positions as “law enforcement.”
Grassley and Ernst are making public previously unreleased government reports confirming ATF Senior Executive Lisa Boykin and Justice Management Division (JMD) Acting Deputy Director of Human Resources (HR) Ralph Bittelari engaged in gross and substantial waste, fraud and abuse, as well as potentially criminal false certification of government records and whistleblower retaliation.
Despite the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and ATF Internal Affairs Division (IAD) confirming Boykin and Bittelari’s potential criminal misconduct, the Biden administration promoted both bureaucrats. According to whistleblower disclosures, Boykin and Bittelari remain employed at the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The Biden administration’s ATF illegally lined employees’ pockets with tens-of-millions of taxpayer dollars. These Washington bureaucrats must answer for their misconduct, and if heads don’t roll, nothing will change,” Grassley said. “Without the continued persistence of brave whistleblowers, ATF’s illegal scheme would’ve likely continued. As always, sunshine is the best disinfectant. Attorney General Pam Bondi should take strong action to hold these Biden-era pencil pushers accountable and end the fraudulent waste at ATF.”
“It is unacceptable that the Biden administration looked the other way while ATF bureaucrats knowingly defrauded taxpayers to pad their salaries,” Ernst said. “These desk jockeys pretending to be law enforcement officers are about to get a crash course in the law. I look forward to Attorney General Pam Bondi sending a clear message that federal employees are not above the law and stealing tax dollars is a crime.”
Read the senators’ letter to DOJ and ATF HERE.
Background:
In February 2020, then-HR Division Chief Bittelari fraudulently certified an administrative ATF position as “law enforcement,” despite warnings from an ATF HR classification expert. The HR expert eventually recused themself from the process and was subsequently threatened with insubordination. Bittelari then approved the fraudulent classification.
Bittelari, along with then-Deputy Assistant Director Boykin, additionally relocated an ATF law enforcement officer from the Phoenix field office to a misclassified administrative position at ATF headquarters, in defiance of OPM’s directives. After moving forward with the illegal relocation, Bittelari told an ATF staff member “everyone was fully aware of the potential consequences,” and attempted to hide the reassignment by submitting false payroll information.
OPM’s audit report found that the ATF’s illegal misclassification scheme hampered the agency’s ability to carry out its law enforcement mission by relocating approximately 100 law enforcement officers from the field to administrative positions at ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C., while continuing to pay them enhanced salaries and benefits. Further, many experienced administrative employees were passed over for promotions as ATF assigned unqualified special agents to senior administrative roles.
OPM estimates the illegal enhancement of ATF bureaucrats’ salaries and benefits cost taxpayers at least $20 million during the five-year period it reviewed. However, whistleblowers allege the scheme has been decades-long and the actual taxpayer cost is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
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