Donald Trump inherited a total mess at a key government agency.
The corruption runs deeper than anyone realized.
And Biden’s ATF got caught red-handed running an illegal scheme that cost taxpayers millions.
Republicans expose ATF salary scandal
Senate Republicans have delivered a bombshell revelation about widespread corruption at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In a scathing letter sent last Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) exposed a shocking illegal scheme where ATF officials deliberately ignored federal rules to inflate their own salaries and benefits.
Even worse, the supervisors who orchestrated this theft of taxpayer money were actually promoted under Joe Biden’s watch.
“As a result of ATF’s illegal conduct, ATF staff assigned to these positions performed administrative work but unlawfully received enhanced law enforcement pay and benefits to which they were not entitled, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars,” Grassley and Ernst wrote in their explosive letter.
Scheme continued despite official warnings
The senators’ investigation revealed that this wasn’t just a simple mistake.
Two separate internal investigations – one from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2020 and another from the ATF’s own Internal Affairs Division completed in early 2024 – documented the illegal activity.
The OPM was so alarmed by what they found that they suspended the ATF’s authority to classify job positions in 2020.
But that didn’t stop these crooked bureaucrats.
According to Grassley and Ernst, senior ATF officials simply ignored these directives and continued their scheme to misclassify administrative positions as law enforcement roles – which come with significantly higher pay and enhanced benefits.
Biden administration promoted the wrongdoers
The senators specifically called out two supervisory agents – Lisa Boykin and Ralph Bittelari – who not only allowed this illegal activity to continue but allegedly retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to expose it.
In one shocking example, Bittelari and Boykin pushed forward with relocating an ATF officer from Phoenix to Washington D.C. for an administrative position that would wrongly pay law enforcement rates – even after OPM specifically identified the position as misclassified.
When confronted about it, Bittelari initially backed down, but after speaking with Boykin, decided to proceed anyway. The senators say he even tried to hide the “unlawful assignment” by submitting the promotion directly to payroll.
In another instance, when a human resources specialist refused to improperly classify a position and sent an email warning it violated OPM directives, that employee was threatened with insubordination.
Instead of facing consequences for this outrageous behavior, these career bureaucrats were rewarded with promotions under Biden’s watch.
“The Biden ATF and DOJ leadership not only failed to hold Boykin or Bittelari accountable for their gross misconduct, but legally protected whistleblower disclosures provided to our offices show these career DOJ bureaucrats were promoted after the conclusion of the IAD investigation that harshly criticized their actions,” the senators wrote.
Whistleblowers targeted by ATF leadership
The culture of corruption at Biden’s ATF extended to silencing those who tried to speak up.
According to the letter, whistleblowers who attempted to expose the misclassification scheme faced retaliation from the very officials who were breaking the rules.
This isn’t the first time Biden’s ATF has been in hot water. Earlier this year, the agency was accused of “circumventing” President Trump’s executive order to curb DEI initiatives at federal agencies.
Grassley and Ernst have demanded that the Justice Department provide a response by May 23 detailing how it plans to address the serious issues outlined in their letter and the Internal Affairs Division report.
“Their complete disregard for the law despite being ‘fully aware of the potential consequences’ show Boykin and Bittelari should not have leadership positions at the Justice Department or its components,” the senators concluded.
