Several people involved in the ATF's flawed gun-buying storefront operation in Milwaukee face administrative punishment while others are under investigation by the agency's Internal Affairs Division and could face stiffer consequences, the Journal Sentinel has learned.
The misconduct investigations are part of a wide-ranging series of steps taken by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after "Operation Fearless" in Milwaukee, where agents last year had their guns stolen, their storefront ripped off and made a host of other mistakes that were exposed by the Journal Sentinel.
The ATF's personnel investigations were disclosed in a letter sent last week from the U.S. Justice Department to members of Congress who have sought answers about the botched operation. They also have demanded a copy of ATF's investigation into what went wrong.
It comes as the agency's acting director, B. Todd Jones, is preparing for a confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. That hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday but has been moved to June 11.
The Justice Department letter was in response to a blistering letter sent last month by four members of Congress, based on a briefing their staffs received from an ATF official. That letter revealed new problems in the ATF's Milwaukee operation, including that ATF has no a manual for running storefront operations -- even though the agency has been conducting them for years.
That letter noted that FBI agents were initially part of the operation but backed out over concerns about how it was being run. It also said the Milwaukee operation was reviewed repeatedly at ATF headquarters in Washington D.C., yet officials failed to take action to fix the problems.
The new letter from the Department of Justice, which oversees the ATF, admits problems in Operation Fearless but argues the agency has taken steps to fix them -- something the congressional letter should have acknowledged.
For instance, the letter said the agency quickly moved to create a manual for undercover sting operations after the Milwaukee failures were revealed.
The manual, "which incorporates both best practices from prior storefront operations and the lessons ATF learned from the Milwaukee operation," is expected to be finished soon, according to the letter written by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik.
A spokesman from the Justice Department declined to comment on the letter. An ATF spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.
The May 31 letter was sent to U.S. Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.); Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Their staffs received a briefing April 15 on Operation Fearless from ATF Assistant Director Michael Gleysteen.
The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, has called the Milwaukee case troubling in light of reforms promised by ATF following the much-criticized Fast and Furious operation.
Horrowitz said he will investigate the Milwaukee sting as part of a larger review of the agency following Fast and Furious, where agents encouraged the sale of more than 2,000 firearms to traffickers by gun stores but lost track of the weapons, many of which ended up at crime scenes in Mexico.
New procedures in place
Kadzik's letter to the congressmen also acknowledged that the agency's Monitored Case Program, created in the wake of Fast and Furious, did not work as intended and failed to detect problems in Operation Fearless. He said changes have been made in that program but did not outline what they were.
The letter says because of the Milwaukee operation, new procedures have been put into place for storefront operations. More agents will be assigned to such operations, lead agents may be required to personally brief headquarters on the operations and walk-through visits of the storefronts were added as part of the monitoring process.
"ATF shares your concerns about the issues that were identified during the internal review and is actively addressing them," Kadzik wrote.
However, the ATF will not release its internal report on Operation Fearless because it includes information about "on-going criminal investigations, law enforcement operations and techniques and potential disciplinary proceedings or personnel actions," Kadzik wrote.
The internal report does not mark the end of the ATF's investigation into the Milwaukee operation. Several actions by personnel taken during the operation have been referred to ATF managers for "appropriate remedial action," Kadzik wrote. It was unclear if he was referring to agents or supervisors or both.
Other ATF personnel have been referred to the agency's Internal Affairs Division for more investigation.
"Should the IAD conclude the facts support a finding of misconduct, the matter would then be referred to the ATF's Professional Review Board, which is authorized to propose formal disciplinary action," Kadzik wrote.
Releasing the internal report could violate the privacy rights and hamper the ongoing personnel investigation, he wrote.
The agent in charge of Operation Fearless, Special Agent Jacqueline Sutton, has been reassigned from Milwaukee to headquarters in Washington, according to several sources. It is unclear if that is a promotion or punishment.
The Journal Sentinel is not naming the ATF agent who worked undercover in the storefront and had his guns stolen because he continues to be involved in undercover operations. His guns, including a machine gun, remain missing. Sutton is no longer working undercover, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Milwaukee, which was briefed on Operation Fearless as it progressed.
The operation, aimed at catching criminals selling guns and drugs, was run by ATF with help from Milwaukee police. It resulted in the seizure of 145 guns and charges against nearly 30 people -- mainly for lower-level offenses. However, a handful of defendants face long prison terms.
Operation Fearless also was beset by a series of questionable practices as well as embarrassing and dangerous failures.
Agents recruited a brain-damaged man to promote the store and set up gun and drug deals, paying him in cash and cigarettes and then turning around and arresting him on federal counts. They allowed an armed felon who was threatening to shoot someone to leave the storefront without arresting him.
The storefront was ripped off of $40,000 in merchandise; agents lost a ballistic shield and left behind a document with the names of undercover agents, their vehicles, cellphone numbers and signals used in law enforcement operations when they moved out; they arrested at least four of the wrong people; and agents failed to pay the landlord for damage. They also grew marijuana as a "prop" in the store.
Before the storefront, the same agents ran a cigarette sting on Milwaukee's south side, where two cases of cigarettes, worth $10,000, were stolen.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service