Biden-Harris administration officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran a corrupt scheme that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
Now they’ve been caught red-handed.
And these ATF bureaucrats made one corrupt move that wasted millions and left Donald Trump fuming.
Two Republican Senators uncovered a shocking scheme where ATF officials illegally classified desk jobs as "law enforcement"
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) just dropped a bombshell letter exposing how Biden-Harris administration bureaucrats at the ATF engaged in shocking corruption that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
After the Biden administration stonewalled their investigation for over a year, whistleblowers provided Grassley and Ernst with internal reports showing ATF Human Resources officials Lisa Boykin and Ralph Bittelari engaged in what the senators describe as "potential criminal misconduct."
What did these Deep State bureaucrats do? The bureaucrats cooked up a plot where pencil-pushers got the pay and benefits meant for actual gun-toting ATF agents. Office workers with no law enforcement duties cashed in on premium pay packages they had no right to receive.
On May 9, Grassley and Ernst fired off a blistering letter to Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll, and Assistant AG for Administration Jolene Ann Lauria calling for heads to roll at the agency.
"The findings in the IAD report presents clear evidence that corrective action must be taken for, at minimum, Ms. Boykin’s and Mr. Bittelari’s gross misconduct," the Senators wrote.
But here’s the most infuriating part – not only did the Biden administration fail to hold these bureaucrats accountable, they actually promoted them after investigators uncovered their corrupt scheme.
Taxpayers lost millions while bureaucrats got rich
According to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) audit, the corrupt classification scheme cost taxpayers around $20 million during the five-year period they reviewed – but whistleblowers say that number is "substantially understated."
The scheme also pulled approximately 100 actual ATF law enforcement officers away from their critical duties protecting communities from "violent criminals, criminal organizations, the illegal use and trafficking of firearms" and instead put them behind desks at ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C.
So while crime skyrocketed across America during the Biden years, these bureaucrats were busy lining their own pockets and weakening law enforcement.
The OPM audit found the ATF’s actions were "particularly egregious because numerous ATF HR officials attempted to advise and inform ATF leadership" about the illegal scheme, but "those attempts were rejected and resulted in employees being admonished for their efforts."
Biden bureaucrats falsified government records and retaliated against whistleblowers
The investigation found that in February 2020, HR Division Chief Ralph Bittelari fraudulently certified an administrative wellness position as "law enforcement" despite clear warnings from HR classification experts that doing so violated federal regulations.
The IAD report tells a damning story. When one brave HR expert refused to go along with the fraud and stepped aside, Bittelari’s deputy cornered them with threats of "insubordination" charges.
The corrupt duo didn’t stop there. Bittelari teamed up with Deputy Assistant Director Boykin to yank an ATF agent out of the Phoenix field office. They shipped the agent to ATF headquarters to fill a paper-pushing position that OPM had already flagged as improperly classified. They knew it was wrong but did it anyway.
When confronted about this illegal move, Bittelari told an ATF staff member that "everyone was fully aware of the potential consequences" but proceeded anyway.
In another shocking instance, the ATF lied to investigators, claiming they had moved an agent from a misclassified administrative position to a legitimate law enforcement role – but when investigators interviewed the agent, he revealed he was still doing the same administrative job, in the same office, and even received a $5,000 bonus for his administrative work.
Brave whistleblowers faced harsh retaliation
The Senators noted that the "brave whistleblowers who came forward have informed our offices that they have continued to be subjected to retaliation by being demoted, not returned to their prior position and have faced repeated attempts by ATF and JMD management to discredit their reputations and ruin their careers."
Grassley and Ernst emphasized that "holding Ms. Boykin and Mr. Bittelari accountable for their gross misconduct will send a strong, clear message that the misconduct and whistleblower retaliation that was pervasive at the Biden DOJ will no longer be tolerated under this new administration."
"You have the power to bring accountability, and without accountability, nothing will change," the Senators told the Trump administration officials.
"The Biden administration’s ATF illegally lined employees’ pockets with tens-of-millions of taxpayer dollars," Grassley said in a statement. "These Washington bureaucrats must answer for their misconduct, and if heads don’t roll, nothing will change."
Sen. Ernst was even more blunt, stating: "It is unacceptable that the Biden administration looked the other way while ATF bureaucrats knowingly defrauded taxpayers to pad their salaries. 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."
The Trump administration now faces a crucial test – will they clean up the corruption left behind by the Biden administration, or will the Deep State get away with robbing taxpayers yet again?