ATF Whistleblower
Edgar A. Domenech says he thought Justice Department officials would welcome information about mismanagement at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Instead, the 23-year ATF veteran says, Justice officials ignored his complaints and later retaliated against him by demoting him, denying him a bonus and attempting to give him a poor job review.
“I realized I was committing career suicide at the time, but I felt I had a moral obligation as the deputy director to protect the agency and the men and women of the agency,” Domenech said in an interview yesterday. “In retrospect, I was naive to believe that the department would welcome my honesty.”
And what did he do?
Domenech filed a 13-page complaint yesterday with the Office of Special Counsel, saying that ATF and the Justice Department punished him for raising questions about the performance of former ATF director Carl J. Truscott, who resigned in August 2006 while under investigation for alleged financial mismanagement.
Domenech, who was second-in-command at ATF for four years, said his complaints about Truscott beginning in late 2005 were ignored or played down by aides to then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales because Truscott had ties to the White House. Truscott headed President Bush’s Secret Service detail before taking over ATF.
But new management is better, right? Wrong:
Domenech said ATF’s acting director, Michael J. Sullivan, and other officials have taken actions meant to punish him for raising questions about Truscott. The moves include transferring him out of headquarters and excluding him from meetings and duties that usually would be his responsibility.
Good to see the ATF continue its stellar performance!
March 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I think I am correct in saying that the ATF thugs from the Houston office that initiated the Branch Davidian fiasco had transferred in from George H.W. Bush’s Secret Service detail.
It’s a wonder either one is still alive with clowns like these protecting them.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
“we’re the only ones trained enough to safely handle [the items included in our bureau name]”
Apparently all at once, too.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I hope the ATF beats his ass off, denies him retirement pension, cancels his medical insurance and assassinates his character and sees to it that he can never get any work ever again, and fires him for moral turpitude.
I didn’t see one word from him of regret for the abuse he and his fellow agents have inflicted on American citizens over the years of his service. Piss on him, now that it is his ox that’s gored.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Deputy Director Tattoo (Domenech – “Look Carl, da plane! da plane!) was voted off ATF’s Fantasy Island (headquarters) by the Islands newcomers after they confirmed how poorly he treated his agents. All the wrongdoings that Tattoo claims have been inflicted on him, he did to others, X 1000 in severity. Paybacks a bitch. Also, when Tattoo turned in Dana Carvey (Truscott) why did he and his co-‘qou’spiritors have do it annomously? They were at the very top levels of ATF management. They wouldn’t put their names on the complaint a) because they are cowards, and b) because they were fully aware of ATF retribution tactics having led their own assaults against their field agents.