ATF Deputy Director Tom Brandon has suspended ATF Assistant Director of the Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations Bill McMahon, ATF Acting Deputy Director Billy Hoover and ATF Assistant Director in Charge of Field Operations Mark Chait until further notice from their cushy ATF management positions as the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, of which McMahon, Hoover and Chait were heavily involved in, is on going. The rumor is that Brandon has a rough draft copy of the Justice Department Inspector General Report on hand, sparking the move. This is great news, however it should have happened a year ago. McMahon, Hoover and Chait made terrible decisions in Fast and Furious, and used their positions within ATF to legislate from the bureau by pushing new gun control measures.
ATF Special Agent Jay Dobyns, who has faced horrible retaliation from managers in the bureau, approved of the move but stressed more needs to be done to hold ATF and DOJ officials involved in Fast and Furious accountable.
"The ‘sidelining’ of Hoover, Chait and McMahon is not nearly enough. It is likely an advance response to a preliminary OIG report being circulated for comment. The problem is many more were involved. What will happen to the SES managers who knew that this corrupt operation was running and didn’t intervene while the body count continued to rise? If you receive an SES rating you are considered to be in the top 5% of government managers, an elite level leader. If you are considered the “best of the best” you are not satisfying your responsibilities by simply telling a peer that the operation was wrong and washing your hands of it? That is passive management and a cop-out. We expect more than that of our leaders and the public needs to demand more than that when those individuals are making decisions, or non-decisions, when it comes to public safety. You can’t let people die and not do something to stop it. There is an ongoing catastrophe with ATF’s leadership: Executives in positions of influence who see bad acts taking place with no courage to act but instead stand by and watch them happen. Can you say Penn State?" Dobyns tells Townhall.
ATF officials did not respond to requests for comment on the suspensions.