Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com ABC7 News takes a tour of one of the country’s three ATF labs to show how evidence is examined. The lab in Walnut Creek, Calif. – the others are in Maryland and Atlanta – has state-of-the-art equipment used to help investigate fires, explosives and weapons. At the heart of the lab is…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The ATF special agent who was fired recently after blowing the whistle on the failed gun-running operation, Fast and Furious returned to his job, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports. Vince Cefalu is back on the payroll for at least 45 days while the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which oversees federal employment…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Three members of Congress are increasingly putting pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to explain the U.S. Attorney’s dysfunctional relationship with the Reno-based ATF office, Main Justice reports. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada has refused to prosecute ATF cases in the Reno office, leaving as many as a dozen cases untouched…..
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A little more than a month on the job, ATF agent Jeff Ryan was helping arrest a man with a history of impersonating police officers when all hell broke loose on Aug. 31, 2001, the Syracuse Post-Standard wrote in a report about the incident. Crouched behind a car, Ryan watched L.A. Deputy…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A veteran ATF agent and well-known whistleblower who was fired in a Denny’s parking lot this week has pledged to challenge his dismissal, Fox News reports. Vince Cefalu, a co-founder of the website CleanUpATF.org, which is critical of the agency, said his firing was the direct result of blowing the whistle on…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Veteran ATF agent Vince Cefalu, a whistleblower who became a particularly controversial figure after voicing concern about the failed Operation Fast and Furious, was “unceremoniously” handed his dismissal papers on Tuesday, according his spokesman. An ATF official met him at the Denny’s parking lot in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada, near his…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com ATF and the DEA don’t track how often informants are given authority to commit a crime, the USA Today reports. While the Justice Department imposes stringent limits on when and how informants for various federal agencies are allowed to break the law on the government’s behalf, an open-records request reveals that neither…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI and DEA have stepped in to help investigate weapons cases after federal prosecutors in Nevada stopped working with the ATF, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports. But the newspaper said neither agency is probing firearm sales or trafficking cases, leaving the state with little protection. Gun data obtained by the Gazette-Journal shows…
