(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The wife of former Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport Executive Director Bryan Malinowski has sued the ATF for killing her husband in a March 2024 predawn raid.
Maria Malinowski’s 236-page lawsuit names the ATF agents who killed Bryan over what amounted to a paperwork issue. Those agents include Timothy Boles, Troy Dillard, Clayton Merrill, Tyler Cowart, Matthew Sprinkles, James Bass, Shannon Hicks, and Amy Ness. Local cops Michael Gibbons and Chris Griggs, who were on an ATF task force, were also named as defendants.
Malinowski died days after he was shot when ATF agents, who weren’t wearing body cameras, raided his home on March 19, 2024, at his home in Little Rock. The ATF said agents returned fire after Malinowski shot at the agents, striking and injuring one of them.
An affidavit released after the shooting said Malinowski bought over 150 guns between May 2021 and February 2024 and that he resold many without a dealer’s license. Malinowski would only be required to have an FFL if selling guns were his principal livelihood. Since he made over $260,000 as the director of the Little Rock Airport, firearms sales obviously weren’t his principal livelihood, his wife said in her lawsuit.
The wife of the Clinton Airport director killed by the ATF last year filed a lawsuit earlier this month.
The details should make your blood boil. The ATF detained Maria for hours after killing her husband.
"Let me out! Let me out! Please hear me out … Oh my love, oh my love. Oh… pic.twitter.com/BBC7kkxWo8— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 23, 2025
For his infraction, the ATF had Malinowski under surveillance for days, installed a GPS tracker on his vehicle, and had undercover ATF agents had made several controlled buys from him at gun shows.
Maria Malinowski’s lawsuit noted the absurdity of ATF’s heavy-handed tactics, which were used to investigate a minor infraction.
“The carloads of agents and task force officers had assembled in the dark that morning to execute a search warrant on the Malinowski home. Bryan’s suspected crime? Failing to secure a $200 federal firearms license before selling firearms at local gun shows,” the lawsuit stated.
“ATF agents covered up the Malinowskis’ video doorbell camera with tape, and less than one minute later, the team leader ordered agents to pry open the locked, glass storm doors and break down the inner, wooden doors with a battering ram to breach the entry,” the lawsuit continued.
“Less than 20 seconds later, at 6:03:46 a.m., gunshots rang out, and Bryan Malinowski crumpled to the ground, shot in the head by an ATF agent following an exchange of gunfire.”
The lawsuit also describes how the ATF detained Maria for hours after killing her husband. They never found any evidence of a crime.
“This is a movie. It’s a movie. We didn’t do anything wrong … you’ve got the wrong house … Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh! Oh! Oh, no. This is no time for God. This is a nightmare,” she could be heard saying while in the back of a police car.
“When they shot my husband, I opened the door from the bedroom because he close it. We thought it was an intruder. So I opened the door, he closed it, and then I opened it again. That’s when they—he got shot,” she said.
Malinowski seeks damages that would be determined as her lawsuit develops.
An Arkansas prosecutor said last June that the state won’t be pursuing charges over the matter.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
