New Fast and Furious fallout: Video warns ATF agents about reporting wrongdoing outside ‘chain of command’
John Solomon
The Washington Guardian
7/19/2012
The federal prosecutor brought in to reform the embattled Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the aftermath of the Fast and Furious gun scandal distributed a videotaped message to employees this month warning there would be “consequences” for reporting wrongdoing outside their chain of command.
The video, obtained by the Washington Guardian, immediately raised alarm among agents in the field, members of Congress and whistleblower advocates.
“Choices and consequences means simply that if you make poor choices, that if you don’t abide by the rules, that if you don’t respect the chain of command, if you don’t find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences,” Acting Director B. Todd Jones told the employees in a video distributed July 9 by email and closed-circuit TV and obtained by the Washington Guardian.
The 3 minute, 22 second videotape was the last of eight “Changecasts” that Jones distributed to ATF employees in recent weeks to describe how he planned to run the agency, improve morale and instill a new culture in the aftermath of one of the agency’s worst scandals…
… Jones has been serving double-duty for months, shuttling between Minnesota where he serves as the U.S. attorney and Washington DC, where Attorney General Eric Holder asked him to temporarily oversee the ATF, which has been without a Senate-confirmed leader for several years. Senators blocked President George W. Bush’s last nominee and opposed President Barack Obama’s first nominee, an ATF supervisor in Chicago…
…The bungled sting [Operation Fast and Furious] only came to light when ATF agent John Dodson and others went to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to report it. Justice officials initially denied the allegations, but later conceded the tactics had been approved by ATF supervisors and federal prosecutors in Phoenix…
Read the complete article at The Washington Guardian.
H/T American Thinker
