ATF Whistleblower Vince Cefalu Fired

ticklethewire.com ^ | 10 October, 2012 | Allan Lengel

[marktwain]

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 home, where Cefalu turned in his credentials, said his spokesman Patrick Crosby, a former spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta, who now has his own public relations firm.

Crosby said Cefalu was fired for “lack of candor.” He did not elaborate.

Cefalu has hired an Atlanta law firm to fight the dismissal.

Cefalu worked for more than two decades for ATF, often in an undercover capacity in major cases involving motorcycle gangs in California and the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.

Wade Drew, a spokesman for ATF, said he could confirm that Cefalu worked for ATF for nearly 25 years and that he was no longer with the agency. But he said ATF does not comment on personnel or disciplinary matters.

In recent years, Cefalu has been one of the more publicly vocal critics of ATF management. He claims to have gone through all the proper channels to voice his concerns about ATF management, but all to no avail.

“I have just been trying to do my job: make good cases, put away the bad guys, keep the our citizens and our agents safe,” he said in a statement after his termination. “ATF management has been bending the rules and breaking the rules. The agents want ATF to be the proud agency it once was, not a place where some managers jeopardize our citizens and our cases. The behavior of ATF management has been speaking for itself with all the transfers, reassignments, resignations. It has been a mess and an embarrassment. That’s not the ATF I have devoted my career and life to, and I do not regret trying to change it.”

Zahra S. Karinshak, an Atlanta-based attorney from Krevolin & Horst, who represents Cefalu, said in a statement:

“Vince has tremendous courage. Anyone who infiltrates the KKK and biker gangs to bring them to justice has an incredible sense of dedication. Vince has a team who will fight for him in court as aggressively as he fought violent crime on our streets.”

ATF had tried firing Cefalu last year. However, he appealed the termination. It became final on Tuesday.

[marktwain]

Retaliation for exposing the gunwalking. Whistleblowers do not do well in the federal government.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Hopefully one of the first things Romney does will be cleaning out the entire DOJ pool.

[Venturer]

It sure needs cleaning out.

Romney has told us a few things he claims he will do on day one.

I would like to add a few,
1. Fire Eric Holder,
2.Fire Hillary Clinton and set up a board to find ways to get rid of any Clinton holdovers in the State Department. Bush should have done it on his first day.
3.Get Sebelius out of her office that day.
4. Go over to EPA and hand out some pink slips.
5. Appoint a board to find Obama’s records and expose him for the criminal fraud he is.Investigate his foreign campaign funds, and get rid of the Muslims he has in the White House.

[Doogle]

“lack of candor.”....odungo’s way of firing people who expose the ignorance and incompetence of this administration.

[MestaMachine]

OUTRAGE!!!
May G-d speak in a Voice that will cause these evil minions to fear and quake in the face of truth and that righteous justice come to them ALL!

[bcsco]

This is a ping list promoting Immigration Enforcement and Congressional Reform.
If you wish to be added or removed from this ping list, please contact me.

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[Balata]

Sounds like a job for Issa. He stated at yesterdays hearing that whistleblowers were to be protected

[Tucker39]

You would have been more accurate if you’d said that whistle blowers don’t do well under the Obummer administration. IMHO. And THAT would still have been a glaring understatement.

[marktwain]

After working inside the DOD for over 30 years, whistle blowers do not do well in *any* administration. I agree, they are likely to be treated especially badly by this one.

[Travis McGee]

The corruption goes to the bone.

[FreedomPoster]

Add “and Pentagon” to that last.

And it’s probably long past time to get rid of a pile of politically correct Pentagon perfumed princes as well. The fact that our casualties in Afghanistan are what they are over the last 3-1/2 years with little to nothing in the way of results, and no one has screamed bloody murder about it such that they were forced to resign, says all I need to know.

[Roccus]

Sounds like a job for Issa.

Give me a break! He's been on the case of this *CF* for 18 months or so and has accomplished nothing save giving scum like Cunningham and other melanin enhanced representatives the opportunity to spout their lies and distortions.

[driftdiver]

Too bad he got fired for blowing the whistle on this travesty of justice.

Time to fire the rest of BATF.

[Venturer]

WTF are we still doing there?

Why?

Like you say, all we are doing is supplying people for them to kill. Nothing has changed. Let’s get the hell out/.

[DH]

Whistle blower protection....what a joke.

What did the EPA manager say “when you enter a town, grab the first 4 people you see and crucify them. Then, everyone will fall in line.” Or something like that.

Same rule applies to ALL whistle blowers....especially in the government.

[DH]

You forgot to put in:

6. Expel all the vermin (Marxist, communist, and socialists) from our government.

[Wurlitzer]

Another day, another reason the Tree of Liberty is dying and is in desperate need of fertilizer.

One must not speak against the “party” as the comrades will respond and destroy you.

Only with almost total cover, thanks to the media, could a communist regime set itself up in the USA and have their Fuehrer be so close to winning in the polls.

The government must be sterilized removing every last communist cancer cell that has invaded it.

[Venturer]

I suspect there are a lot more things that need doing, but the first day is a bit crowded already LOL.

[slowhandluke]

Point 1 should be expanded. Bush should have done what Clinton did and ask all Fed DAs to resign. Now Romney should (but won't) do it.

1. Fire Eric Holder. Ask for the resignation of all Federal DAs, and do not re-appoint any Clinton or Obama appointees. Vet the rest for liberal tendencies. Appoint only folks who promise to clean house, and are likely to do so.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.