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I am aware that I run the risk of sounding like I have an inflated sense of the value that I bring to ATF. I do not. I know that I am just a guy, and I am someone that will be replaced the moment I turn in my stuff. Just to save everyone time, I will tell you that I am not resigning “in lieu of termination” and there is no scandal that resulted in my resignation. I have just reached the point where I cannot, in good faith, support the direction this government is taking our country; specifically, the direction it is taking law enforcement. Over the past almost 18 years with ATF, I have worked in 4 different states and 5 different cities. I have had at least 9 different supervisors and regularly received outstanding evaluations from all of them. I am not a guy that bucks the system or causes problems or brings others down. I am just a guy that works hard and asks questions and wants to know the “why” behind everything. I challenge others to simply do their very best, all the time, and expect them to challenge me to do the same. But like most cops, I am also a guy that needs his job to be more than a paycheck. I never did this job because it was “fun”, I did this job because it is necessary…and purposeful. There are very few of us that are willing to do it. I have always said that I do this job for the mission, not the money. That mission used to be locking up violent criminals. I don’t know what the mission really is anymore, but I don’t like it. For the past couple of years, I have found myself asking “why” a lot more often. As of late, the answer is typically because “they” said so. I still don’t know who “they” are. But I seem to disagree with whoever “they” are on pretty much everything. It is getting more difficult, but I am still an optimist and I pray that someone, somewhere at the top, pays attention and my resignation may somehow bring the support for law enforcement back to the people in the trenches. The people that could actually die doing this job, the street level agents, Task Force Officers and street cops. I am not trying to speak on behalf of all agents and law enforcement personnel across the country. I can only speak to what I know is happening in areas I am familiar with. It seems like parts of the country may be perfectly content with the way things are going. I don’t like referring to “red” or “blue” states, but at a minimum, I would suspect agents and officers in “blue” states are not happy. We are a federal agency and so is the USAO, if AUSAs in certain parts of the country are prosecuting various ATF type crimes, shouldn’t the entire country see similar results? Why do federal prosecutions vary from state to state? We as agents are required to set aside our personal and political opinions and do our job. Why does that same standard not apply to the entire Department of Justice? I know there will be many that disagree with my take on things and that is just fine. We should be allowed to have different opinions; but I know there are others out there struggling with the same feelings I am struggling with, and I pray they find purpose and rejuvenation for the job. Despite the email inundation, I did not submit my Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) because I think the questions are extremely vague. Vagueness leads to misunderstandings and misrepresentations. If you want the truth, be specific. We are investigators, for us, the truth is in the details. If you are implying the survey is in reference to certain people, include their name on it. Most field agents, especially younger ones, have no clue who makes up our “senior leadership”. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know who all of them are either because most of them have no impact on my daily job. If you don’t include the name, we don’t know exactly who you are talking about. And you won’t know who we are talking about. In a survey, there should be no room for interpretation. Unless of course, you want to manipulate the data. I

would be curious to know how the rest of the country feels about the Attorney General, their respective U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and DOJ as a whole. I think you would probably find that law enforcement officers in a number of states feel like the DOJ Civil Rights Division and the woke left are not only running the entire country but are decimating cities and police departments. You may also find that in certain areas, agents think ATF is folding to the pressures of the left. I doubt those questions will be asked because I don’t trust that you really want to know why morale is low. You look for a scapegoat, like COVID. But that is not why. I am confident that the agents and officers regularly working violent crime and going toe-to-toe with the most violent criminals on the street are not worried about dying from COVID or if everyone is vaccinated or wearing a mask or if they can telework. If you want the field to take the survey seriously, then you need to take the survey seriously. The last time morale was this low with ATF was probably 2013-2016. Coincidentally, that was also the last time we had an administration openly criticize law enforcement. Both administrations preached diversity, or rather “celebrate” it, but then expect everyone to have the same liberal opinion. I don’t know anyone in law enforcement that wants to be “celebrated”. But people in law enforcement do need to know they are supported. We are all cops; race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, or political affiliation don’t matter to us when we are all working together to fight the evil that is out there. The government is creating this issue. The government is dividing us. This job is not about us as individuals, it is about helping the people and protecting them from the predators. I have always loved the mentality of law enforcement officers. No matter their political affiliation they stand for law and order. They stand for what is good. They stand for what is right. This is the fourth administration I have worked under. I have never seen the country more divided than it is right now. We are becoming a country that focuses on extremes and all the good people in the middle are the ones suffering. Instead of being a rational voice, the government is only adding fuel to the fire. I don’t feel like our leadership is fighting for the agents, or for police in general. They seem to be going along with the attitude of the current administration. I get it, they don’t want to push back and risk losing their position, or title. But we are allowing people that have never done this job to dictate how we do this job. Why are we so afraid of educating politicians with the truth? Our agency talks a lot about developing real “leaders”. If our leaders are afraid, or unwilling, to fight back against things they know are wrong, maybe they are not leaders. “Because they said so” or “Because I said so” should never be an acceptable answer for a leader and those phrases are never used by a real leader. A long time ago, when I was a brand-new patrol officer in Albuquerque, my training officer told me “If you have to say the words ‘I’m in charge’, then you are not in charge”. Our government tends to punish, shame or pressure employees into compliance rather than motivate. If employees (especially those in law enforcement) are motivated, and

know

they are supported, they will work their tails off. Money is not

the

motivating factor for law enforcement officers. Sure, we have bills to pay, and we should be able to live a comfortable lifestyle, but we

need

to serve a mission greater than ourselves, and we

need

to feel like what we do may actually make a difference.

I feel like what I am being told and what I see happening are contradictory. In a meeting not too long ago, the Deputy Director told us that ATF is not aligning with either political party (which is the way it should be. But also intriguing to me that he felt the need to emphasize it), however, ATF’s recent actions sure seem to align with the left. Over the last couple of years, ATF has been spending a significant amount of time talking about and changing the course of this agency to focus on “the gun”. Frankly, I don’t really care about investigating the gun, I care about investigating the criminal, and then plucking that criminal out of society. Last year, HQ spent pretty much the entire year, talking about the “vaccine” and threatening termination for those who wouldn’t get it. Why should anyone, let alone the government, care who does and does not get vaccinated. Yet, the Deputy Director threatened to prosecute the agents for “lying to a federal agent” if we did not appropriately update our vaccination status the system. Seems a bit extreme. I have never even threatened a criminal with that charge. The push was clearly political, and I wanted no part of it. ATF didn’t fight for the rights of the agents. They allowed the government to treat those that fought back like they were lepers. Then they tasked attorney’s with determining if agents were religious enough to opt out. Does it really matter? They didn’t want the shot. That should have been the end of it. But then there was a second assault from the attorneys, but this time the level of questioning essentially mocked one’s faith. They knew they had no legal grounds, so they used the leftist tactics of shaming, excluding, and threatening into compliance. There is no telling how many agents got vaccinated for the sole purpose of keeping their job and their pension. The government’s tactic had no teeth and overnight it all just went away. They acted like it never happened. Another liberal tactic. But it was worth it right? ATF got a bigger budget out of it. A budget that will be used to focus on “the gun”. ATF catered to an administration that has made it clear that they don’t like guns and they don’t like the police. Money isn’t free, no matter what this administration says. Did our leaders forget that ATF agents

are

law enforcement? Most agents are pro-gun. All agents should be anti-criminal. We did not become ATF agents so we could collect data, ensure firearms are in compliance, seize trigger groups, argue about what a firearm is or is not, seize firearms for reasons other than prosecuting criminals, or spend countless hours inputting data to justify someone else’s existence in HQ. We became ATF agents so we could work the streets and smack evil in the mouth. We took this job because we are willing to risk it all and hope that we can make the streets just a little bit safer for the law abiding, upstanding citizens of the USA. At least that’s why

I

became an ATF agent. Deep down, I can’t imagine that our ATF leadership agrees with this administration’s approach to policing or their treatment of law enforcement personnel. Nobody in law enforcement can agree with this administration and still believe in the mission of police work. It is not social work; it is police work. This cannot be the future of law enforcement if we truly care about our country and the well-being of its citizens. For at least the last decade, the government has focused on holding police accountable. I agree, we do need to be held accountable. But everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions, not just police. Who is holding the criminal accountable? Who’s holding the politicians accountable? As a first line supervisor, I consistently see agents and officers second guessing themselves before and after the use of force. It is not their fault. I have been in several uses of force, and they were all deemed “reasonable”. I truly believe that after force is used by ATF agents, we