Today's award goes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, part of the US Department of Justice. WLWT-TV reports:
Federal officials have spent more than $8 million storing about $1 million worth of fireworks seized from a northern Kentucky dealer.
The storage costs continue to rise more than three years after a federal judge ordered the return of nearly half the fireworks.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is paying nearly $102,000 monthly to store 44 tractor loads of fireworks at the former Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant in Nebraska. Some of the fireworks may now be dangerously unstable because they have not been stored properly for five years, the newspaper reports.
Fallout from the investigation forced the ATF to re-evaluate its practices and led a U.S. magistrate judge to recommend sanctions against the federal government.
. . .
"The court will stop short of finding ATF committed a fraud upon the court in filing these affidavits knowing the statements made therein to be false, but does find such assertions were made in bad faith," [U.S. Magistrate Judge Candace] Smith wrote.
In addition to returning the legal fireworks, Smith recommended the government reimburse Droganes the legal fees he incurred in seeking the return of the fireworks. Droganes said he had spent $500,000.
Smith also wants the government to reimburse the $320,000 in rental fees Droganes incurred when federal agents held several overseas shipping containers filled with fireworks for 18 months.
There's more at the link. Go read the details - they're infuriating!
So, not content with wasting $8 million of taxpayers' money in unnecessary (and, dare I say, egregiously inflated) storage charges, the ATF may now have to fork out another million or so of our money in sanctions and damages! Why haven't those responsible for this foul-up been sacked?
Peter
Peter- this is nothing new, esp. when F - Troop is involved. Lying, false warrents, innocent folks being locked up and treated like murderers for minor paperwork errors or misteaks, hell, people being shot & killed on wrong-adress warrents and then having it swept under the rug is SOP for this rogue organisation. It shuold be disbanded, and many agents and officals need to be tried, and HUNG!!
ReplyDeleteGiven that the actions in the post and the comment are all SOP for BATFE, hanging is too good for them. What those responsible will receive, however, is promotions and awards. It's not a bug, it's a feature, as far as BATFE (and the DOJ) is concerned.
ReplyDeleteThings like this happen because FedGov is corrupt to the core. ATF is one of the worst FedGov agencies there is. At times there is serious competition between ATF, DEA and EPA, but ATF usually wins. Problems like this always worsen when you have a Nazi like ZerO in the White House.
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