OPINION: What should happen to the ATF staff who wrongfully imprisoned Adamiak

If ATF doesn't hold itself fully accountable, do we need ATF?

by Lee Williams

Patrick Tate Adamiak is starting his fourth year of a 20-year federal prison sentence even though he broke no law and committed no crime.

That sad fact leads almost every discussion about the 31-year-old who had no prior criminal history. The public’s attention has been rightfully focused on freeing him from his undeserved incarceration, not on the ATF agents who wrongfully put him in a prison cell for two decades.

As most of you know, Joe Biden’s ATF lied about what their confidential informant had purchased from Adamiak. They lied again to obtain a search warrant of Adamiak’s property. They found nothing illegal while executing their search warrant, so they lied yet again about the legal items they found in order to obtain a conviction.

These untruths, in my humble opinion, were made for three reasons: in order to stave off any claim that Adamiak’s civil rights were violated, to shield the ATF agents from how poorly they conducted the investigation, and to keep secret that fact that they simply can’t work a confidential informant.

The ATF’s lies were so profound they actually turned gun parts into machineguns. Their firearms “experts” even classified a toy as a machinegun—a toy! They misclassified two DEWAT RPGs as actual grenade launchers, which added 15 years to Adamiak’s sentence. An ATF expert even classified seven legal semi-auto handguns, which fire from an open bolt, as machineguns.

To be clear, this was a massively flawed investigation. It was fraudulent in more than a hundred different ways. And it was fraudulent from the very beginning.

This entire monstrosity started when the ATF sent a confidential informant to buy machineguns from Adamiak, who never sold any machineguns, of course. Adamiak never had any machineguns.

Instead, Adamiak sold the informant barrel shrouds, which were even cut up into pieces.

Barrel shrouds surround a machinegun barrel. They’re meant to keep a young soldier from burning their hands on a hot machinegun barrel. The weapon can fire full-auto with or without a shroud. They certainly aren’t vital parts. They definitely are not a “machinegun.”

Anyone who misclassifies cut up barrel shrouds as machineguns shouldn’t be working for the ATF, but that’s exactly what ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Ronald K. Davis did. He put this deception into a report, which ATF Agent William S. Harston, Jr., quickly used as evidence to obtain a search warrant of Adamiak’s home. Hairston, the ATF’s lead case agent, even held up a toy during Adamiak’s trial, which of course was also classified as a machinegun.

“If they never lied about those shrouds, they never would have gotten a search warrant,” Adamiak said Wednesday.

During his trial, Adamiak’s defense team tried to argue that the barrel shrouds weren’t machineguns, so the search warrant was flawed, and the ATF’s entire “investigation” was based on lies, but the judge cut them right off.

Adamiak was calm when I asked about his years of mistreatment by the ATF. He pointed to what the new ATF director, Rob Cekada, recently said during a congressional hearing. He agrees with Cekada’s comments.

“There is ambiguity in the law, and I think it’s important for people to be able to follow the law, to understand to law, and when federal agents don’t understand the law themselves, that leaves all of us at risk, and there shouldn’t be any room there,” Cekada told Congressman Eli Crane, who chaired the hearing.

I asked Adamiak what he thinks should happen to the ATF staffers whose misdeeds got him arrested, which led to his 20-year sentence.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “They should be immediately fired, and I think they should be investigated for perjury.”

If the ATF kicked down my door for no reason, seized all my guns for no reason, lied under oath and sent me to prison for two decades, I would want more—much more—than perjury charges.

I truly believe Adamiak will be released, hopefully soon. He has a hearing next month and his new legal team is incredible. The public has mailed hundreds of “Free Tate” letters to the White House and other recipients. There are also other machinations occurring almost daily that could also lead to his release. Unfortunately, nothing happening now will hold anyone accountable for the more than 1,500 days Adamiak has spent behind bars or the 5,840 days he has left to serve.

As a result, the ATF agents who were involved with the Adamiak investigation believe they got away with it. They committed a massive civil rights violation solely to ingratiate themselves with the Biden administration, and are all still gainfully employed. These agents go to work every day as if they did nothing wrong.

In a perfect world, once Adamiak is freed, these agents will be held accountable. The current ATF leadership doesn’t get to simply ignore this group of miscreants. They need to be made an example of, so that their extreme misconduct never happens again. Trust me, unless these ATF staffers are held accountable for their misdeeds it all will happen again, especially when there’s another Democrat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

What these agents did needs to be dissected. Those responsible need to be severely disciplined. It must not be overlooked by the current ATF leadership. The entire organization needs to look at this incident as it really is—a massive civil rights violation that merits penalties. No one who made a single decision about the case should ever receive another taxpayer dollar.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the ATF itself need to take a close, serious look at what they did to Patrick Tate Adamiak or it will happen again, especially when there’s another Dem calling the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Once was enough.

Bottom line: If the ATF doesn’t hold itself fully accountable, we need to ask whether we even need the ATF.

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