The Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general has identified concerns with the handling of employee-issued firearms by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after parts of a firearm, which was to be destroyed in 2019, were used to commit a crime by a private citizen four years later.
“The OIG identified these concerns in connection with an investigation of a recovered privately made firearm (PMF), also known as a ‘Ghost Gun,’ that contained an unserialized frame attached to a slide and barrel of a DEA employee-issued firearm,” Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in a memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
According to Horowitz, DEA records showed “the slide and barrel were submitted for destruction by the DEA in 2019, yet the parts were recovered during an arrest of a private citizen by local law enforcement in 2023.”
Although the DEA and FBI both told Horowitz that they no longer store firearm parts awaiting destruction in open bins, neither agency currently has policies to address the issue nor a documentation process in place to track the firearms and parts.
“Specifically, DEA does not have any official policies regarding the storage, documentation, and safe handling of employee issued firearms pending destruction, and FBI’s policies have significant gaps with respect to the destruction of employee issued firearms,” Horowitz wrote.
During the OIG’s investigation, it also found that 100 firearms intended for destruction in 2019 were unaccounted for, and while the DEA concluded that those firearms were destroyed, it was based on an unofficial spreadsheet created by an employee. There were no official documents to determine the accuracy of the destruction of those firearms.
The OIG indicated that the lack of policies related to employee-issued firearms destruction “create significant risks that firearms or their parts could be lost or stolen and used in subsequent crimes without accountability.”
The watchdog made four recommendations—two each to the FBI and the DEA—and both agencies concurred with them.
“We agree that having both a robust documented policy covering the destruction of employee-issued firearms and documentation of our existing training process for relevant FBI employees on the topic, would address concerns identified in the memorandum,” Alfred Watson, deputy assistant director of training for the FBI, wrote to Horowitz.
Watson indicated that before the inspector general’s report, the FBI had taken steps to move firearms awaiting destruction to a more “secured” facility. He also indicated that an updated training policy will cover the secure storage of firearms and parts before destruction and documentation to track the items.
The DEA Chief of Compliance Edward Kovacs wrote to Horowitz that the agency is in the process of finalizing policy and standard operating procedures that address the concerns regarding the storage, documentation, and destruction of firearms that are issued to employees. The DEA also will provide training to employees related to the firearms.
The DEA didn’t reply by publication time to a request for comment. When asked for comment, the FBI referred The Epoch Times to its response in the report.
