Senators say Biden ATF officials illegally classified jobs as ‘law enforcement,’ costing taxpayers

Whistleblower reports show senior officials at the Biden-era Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives participated in an illegal scheme in which certain human resources and other administrative positions at the agency were misclassified as “law enforcement” positions, wasting taxpayers funds, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen, Chuck Grassley and Sen. Joni Ernst said in a letter on Monday. 

“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 in a statement. 

“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.”

The senators released information contained in Office of Personnel Management reports reviewing the incidents showed they scheme “hampered the agency’s ability to carry out its law enforcement mission” and cost taxpayers at least $20 million. 

The Senators sent the letter, which details the whistleblower allegations and report findings, to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Acting Director Daniel Driscoll, and Assistant Attorney General for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria on Monday. 

You can read the letter below: 

In February 2020, despite warnings from an ATF HR classification expert, then-HR Division Chief Ralph Bittelari fraudulently certified an administrative ATF position as “law enforcement.” After the expert recused himself and was threatened with insubordination, Bittelari subsequently approved the fraudulent classification.

In a separate incident, Bittelari and then-Deputy Assistant Director Lisa Boykin relocated an ATF law enforcement officer from Phoenix to an administrative position at ATF headquarters and misclassified the position contrary to OPM’s directives. After carrying out the misclassification anyways, Bittelari acknowledged to an ATF staff member that “everyone was fully aware of the potential consequences,” afterwards submitting false payroll information to cover it up, the senators said. 

According to the senators, an audit report from OPM found the illegal mis-classification scheme likely cost the taxpayers at least $20 million over a five-year period and “hampered the agency’s ability to carry out its law enforcement mission” by redirected about 100 law enforcement officers from the field to headquarters. 

The whistle-blowers say, however, the scheme has actually been decades-long, likely costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the letter also states. 

“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.”