ATF Whistleblower Fired in Denny's Parking Lot For Exposing Corruption

town hall ^ | 10/12 | pavlich

[RummyChick]

Special Agent Vince Cefalu has worked for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for more than 25 years. On top of successfully placing dozens of hard criminals behind bars throughout his career, Cefalu has received promotions and consistently positive evaluations. When he started raising his voice about ATF corruption and illegal wiretapping in 2005, things changed. Tuesday evening, Cefalu was asked to meet Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division Joseph Riehl at a Denny's Restaurant near Lake Tahoe. When he arrived, he was served termination papers in the parking lot. Classy move. The exchange was secretly recorded by a confidential source. David Codrea has more:

[blueunicorn6]

ATF.......

A
Terrible
Farce

[Venturer]

Government cannot be trusted.

Government Agencies are filled with corruption.

The Justice Department is a joke.

[Doogle]

..the Chicago way, much more out of him, and they’ll be telling him to show up at FT Marcy Park

[Fester Chugabrew]

“[My constituants say,] ‘When law enforcement officers lie to lawyers, they go to jail. When lawyers lie to Congress, they seem to get promoted.’” -Rep. Trey Gowdy

[muawiyah]

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2012/08/080212-sf-san-francisco-field-division-welcomes-new-leader-joseph-m-riehl.pdf Tells you this Riehl guy's background ~ much of it has been spent butt up against organized crime involvement ~ which, given the fact he'd pick a Denny's parking lot to fire a whistleblower in the biggest single scandal of the Obama regime until the Libyan disaster ~ suggests he's picked up some ideas from them.

So our guy had a secret camera. Guarantee Riehl had a couple of gunmen handy.

Then, there's Baltimore ~ Pelosi's old hometown where her papa was a siciliano protectore (not quite a made man) but the connection with this Riehl is suspicious ~ could be he's trusted. Riehl was also involved in ATF activities in Biden's stomping grounds in Delaware.

Gives you an idea how seriously the Obama regime is taking Fast & Furious if they are already out using up assets like their sleeper agent Riehl to show their flag.

[mass55th]

"Notwithstanding the transparently trumped-up nature of the so-called "charges" in question, proposing a termination and then excuting it over a year and a half later is prima facie evidence that the action is unsustainable and is virtually certain to be reversed on appeal."

I'd say he's right on this. They've weakened their case by waiting so long to terminate a person they put on paid leave a year and a half ago. If the charges were provable, and they had evidence to support it, why wait that long, and pay him his salary in the meantime? Did they think he'd eventually change his mind, and roll over to their way of thinking?

I did some searching online. Found that NETU is the union that represents federal employees, and employees of the ATF are members of this union. I'm assuming that means agents too. I find it strange that there has been no mention of union representation while any of this was going on. Surely the reason they put him on paid leave was that it is part of the contract agreement with the union. If there was no union representation, they could have canned him a long time ago.

I'm assuming that their union rights are similar to the law enforcement union I belonged to. At some point, the feds should have presented Cefalu with paperwork listing specific charges, and provide statements as to his actions related to those charges. This would have been done with union representation present. During that year and a half, he should have at least had some kind of hearing where witnesses were called for both sides. Then an arbitrator would weigh the testimony/evidence, and render a decision. Cefalu would have been provided union representation during this hearing, and he could also have had legal representation provided by the union, or pay for his own if he chose to use someone other than the union's legal reps.

It's a bit weird that he was served termination papers in a parking lot, again without any union representation present. Any termination should have been conducted at the office he worked at, with witnesses for both sides present. And he wouldn't be required to sign any paperwork if he chose to refuse...which I hope he did. This whole thing, and the way the feds have handled it is so underhanded, and so bizarre, it's beyond imagination. Even a good fiction writer would have a hard time coming up with this scenario.

[Vigilantcitizen]

“Henry Bowman...pick up the white courtesy phone please.”

[RobinOfKingston]

Everyone involved with Cefalu’s termination needs to be removed from their jobs, fired, banned forever from government employment.

The B of ATF & E (do they need some more letters?) ought to be dismantled. It is unreformable.

[jmax]

WOW....ATF & E ..... Alcohol, Tax, Firearms & Explosives...sounds like a great party...who’s bringing the chips? Don’t even have to BYOB.

[muawiyah]

just roughly anybody at GS12 and above is never a member of any federal union unless it's to sign on to a union sponsored health care plan.

These special agents are not bargaining unit ~ rather, their job is the direct application of federal policy.

Excluding USPS, the overwhelming majority of federal employees are non-union. In, USPS, almost everyone is union. The military are non-union.

I think that should give you all the information you need to see why no union representative was present at the firing in the parking lot ~ on the other hand the Regime's agents imagine they need a safer place than their own offices to fire one of their whistle blowers.

I can attribute that only to a fear of being gunned down by their own co-workers and maybe their bosses!

All is not well in ATF.

[mass55th]

Thanks. What a sad state of affairs, when you have to worry more about your safety because of your co-workers, than the criminals you pursue. Management at that place has be rampant with corruption, and promotions must be based on whoever your daddy is.

[muawiyah]

The capporegime is the one with the fear ~ and rightly so ~ he is doing the dirty work for the underboss above him and numerous ATF agents disagree with the underboss who has endangered them all with 'Fast and Furious'.

The mafia terminology and downstream behavior fits the agency too closely ~ which is why it needs to be taken down by the next president.

Nancy Pelosi undoubtedly has an intimate understanding of what's going on here.

[mass55th]

"The mafia terminology and downstream behavior fits the agency too closely ~ which is why it needs to be taken down by the next president."

I sure as hell hope so.

[TXnMA]

"The Justice Department is a joke travesty."

As CleanUpATF said,

"They can't even do the wrong thing right."

[cradle of freedom]

One of the whistle blowers of the Benghazi attacks said something about how he was more afraid of the Taliban on the inside, meaning certain members of the United States government.