Obama’s ATF Nominee Criticized for Seeming to Discourage Whistleblowers

Cybercast News Service ^ | January 18, 2013 | Fred Lucas

[Olog-hai]

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President Obama’s nomination of B. Todd Jones to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) raises “serious questions” because of Jones’ ties to the Fast and Furious scandal. …

Although Jones replaced the ATF leadership team, he still has come under scrutiny for comments he made earlier this year in a video message to the ATF’s 5,000 employees.

As first reported by The Washington Guardian in July 2012, Jones called for “One ATF, everybody working together, exemplifying one of the pieces of our leadership philosophy, that being teamwork.” Later in the video he said, “Choices and consequences means simply that if you make poor choices, that if you don’t abide by the rules, that if you don’t respect the chain of command, if you don’t find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences.” …

Grassley and (Daniel) Issa say that under Jones’ leadership of ATF, one of the key figures in Operation Fast and Furious was given favorable treatment while an ATF whistleblower cooperating with congressional investigators faced an internal affairs probe. …

[TigersEye]

A pResident who has to issue an Executive Order to remind himself, after four years in office, to nominate someone to head a major agency isn’t playing with a full deck.