ATF Morale Hits Bottom

The below Fox News report about sinking morale at ATF is hardly surprising in the wake of the Fast and Furious gun scandal.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/26/internal-memo-shows-atf-rank-and-file-dont-trust-brass/

Most federal law enforcement agents at the field level hold somewhat negative attitudes toward their HQ. It was similar at DEA when I was an agent. Once an agent is promoted to supervisory level, it is expected they will spend at least one tour of duty at HQ in Washington DC. It is there that they get their "frontal lobotomy" as we used to say. DEA HQ was generally viewed as a bureaucracy, where things ground to a halt or a snail's pace whenever the field needed HQ approval for additional money or authorization to carry out a particular enforcement operation that was outside the normal procedure. Many agents (certainly not all) who were well-respected as street agents earned a lesser reputation as supervisors or when they were working in HQ.

My perception of the ATF scandal (without the benefit of inside knowledge) is that the top level ATF officials were under the thumb of Eric Holder's corrupt Justice Department. I still hold that the idea and/or the approval for Operation Fast and Furious had to come from the highest levels of DOJ-if not the White House. I believe that those 80,000 documents the DOJ Inspector General is withholding from Congress will prove that.

As a DEA agent, I occasionally worked with ATF. I respected them. Along with DEA, they had the most dangerous work in Federal law enforcement. I feel for what the rank-and-file agents are going through. I also think that if and when all the facts come out and the real guilty persons are punished, nobody will be happier than the street agents in ATF.