(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A government watchdog agency revealed that approximately $20 million of taxpayer dollars were unlawfully paid to hundreds of federal government workers in the span of five years.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced earlier this month that it alerted President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress of an unlawful employment scheme involving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to scathing testimony from two ATF whistleblowers.
“ATF unlawfully provided law enforcement pay and benefits to agents and investigators who filled non-law-enforcement positions, such as in human resources,” OSC announced on a May 2 press release. “These positions had been intentionally misclassified to be within the law enforcement job series.”
ATF for years unlawfully paid agents millions of dollars in wrongful benefits by providing law enforcement pay to agents filling non-law-enforcement positions. Over a five-year period, the cost was upwards of $20 million. https://t.co/5jD8mzeaC4
— OfficeSpecialCounsel (@US_OSC) May 2, 2023
OSC said it found probable cause in the allegations and found a “long-standing misclassification of upper-level jobs, which resulted in ATF overpaying agents by up to $20 million over a five-year period.”
Once the watchdog agency notified ATF of the unlawful practices, ATF deferred to a third-party investigation by the Office of Personnel Management, which later found that top-level federal officials at ATF “acted outside of merit system principles and demonstrated disregard for the rule of law.”
At least 108 tax-paid employees were exposed to be in non-law-enforcement roles who had received multi-million-dollar benefits through “enhanced retirement” packages. The scheme, said OSC, resulted in ATF getting its authority to classify law enforcement roles.
Special Counsel Henry J. Kerner said that appropriate action was being taken to address the allegations. “I thank the whistleblowers for coming forward with these very serious allegations and am pleased that under OPM’s oversight, ATF has initiated corrective measures,” Kerner said, later warning that “progress toward full resolution has been slow.”
The national group Gun Owners of America said more needed to be done, noting that the report indicated the actual cost of the ATF swindle could be much higher.
“Yet, the Biden Administration has done nothing to withdraw its proposed budget for fiscal year 2024. Instead, The Biden Administration would rather reward ATF for its financial crimes with a 13.6% increase over the 2023 budget—raising the operating budget to nearly $2 billion,” the group wrote at ZeroHedge.
“Congress cannot turn a blind eye to ATF’s corruption and this rogue agency must be held accountable.”
