Lawmakers ask tough questions about ATF shooting of airport director

In multiple congressional hearings, lawmakers have asked tough questions about the recent shooting and killing of the Little Rock, Arkansas, airport director by federal agents as they executed a search warrant in a predawn raid of his house.

Bryan Malinowski, the executive director of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in a case that not only has drawn comparisons with federal raids in Waco and Ruby Ridge but also prompted U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) to say there was a “dual system of justice in the United States: Hunter Biden versus Bryan Malinowski.”

At the time of the early morning raid, in which the ATF was attempting to serve a search warrant at Malinowski’s house, the agency was investigating the director for selling firearms without a license.

In the raid, Malinowski was shot in the head 57 seconds after federal agents kicked in his door. An ATF agent was also shot and received non-life threatening injuries.

The agency began the investigation in late 2023 after receiving a photo from a confidential informant and then linking Malinowski to the purchase of more than 150 firearms over a period of about three years. Among other things, Malinowski allegedly resold some of the firearms at gun shows without asking for identification or paperwork, according to the affidavit, with Malinowski making statements that he did not need to have paperwork because he was a private seller. 

He also indicated on ATF Form 4473 that the purchased firearms were intended for his personal ownership, not for resale, even though the form cautions that the “repetitive purchase of firearms for the purpose of resale for livelihood and profit” without a federal firearms license was illegal. 

The ATF affidavit asserted that six firearms were known to have been recovered in the commission of a crime, with another three recovered through undercover purchases by ATF. 

However, critics characterized the firearms’ sales as Malinowski’s hobby, saying that occasional sales and exchanges are exempt and that the form says a license is required for “livelihood and profit.” 

In any event, even if the charges were substantive, critics say the ATF raid was extreme because the agency could have arrested him on multiple occasions that would not involve a confrontation, especially in the early morning at his family’s home.

The day after the shooting, attorney Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney, released a statement on behalf of the Malinowski family, raising the first of what has become a torrent of questions as an investigation continues. It has also prompted a deeper dive by the House Judiciary Committee into yet more examples of ATF overreach.

The family said the raid was beyond their comprehension.

“Our thoughts and prayers also go out to the government agent who was injured yesterday, and to his family,” the family stated. “We do not understand the government’s decisions which led to a dawn raid on a private home and triggered the use of deadly force.”

Family members said they were obviously concerned about the government allegations raised in the affidavit, but insisted that those charges did not warrant what took place that March morning.

“Even if the allegations in the affidavit are true, they don’t begin to justify what happened,” the family stated. “At worst, Bryan Malinowski, a gun owner and gun enthusiast, stood accused of making private firearm sales to a person who may not have been legally entitled to purchase the guns. For now, we will wait for all the facts to come out.”

A trail of tears

At a May 22 public hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, Cummins elaborated on Malinowski’s involvement with firearms — the attorney labeled it a hobby — and he laid out many of the details that happened on March 19, the morning of the raid.

“About four years ago, Bryan’s father gave him his gun collection and it sparked a new interest in Bryan,” Cummins testified. “At gun shows, he found other enthusiasts and collectors who shared his interests. On some weekends he would set up a table at a gun show to display his coin and gun collections.”

Cummins reminded the committee that it is legal to buy, trade, and sell guns without a Federal Firearms License if you are a collector or hobbyist.

“At some point, ATF decided that Bryan Malinowski had crossed a murky line and he was no longer a hobbyist,” he testified. “Because of that, ATF concluded he was required to purchase a $200 Federal Firearms License before he sold any more guns. I call it a ‘murky’ line because there is no bright line test, it’s subjective.”

One thing seems certain, Cummins said. 

“Bryan received no warning,” he testified. “His family, his friends, and his work colleagues would all guarantee you he loved his career and would have never knowingly jeopardized it over a weekend hobby.”

And so without any warning, Cummins testified, the ATF got aggressive.

“ATF tailed Bryan in his car,” he testified. “They put a tracker on his car. And they obtained a warrant to search his home.”

On March 19, at 6:01 a.m., over one hour before sun-up, 10 carloads of ATF agents and Little Rock police officers came to the Malinowski home to execute their search warrant, Cummins testified. 

“At 6:02:46 a.m., ATF agents in full SWAT gear approached the front door,” he said. “They had a piece of tape ready to cover the camera lens of the doorbell camera.”

By the family’s account, no one heard any law enforcement officer identify themselves, Cummins testified.

“Next, Mrs. Malinowski heard only a loud crash as her front door caved in,” he said. “Her husband Bryan woke up to the sound of the crash, found a pistol, loaded a magazine, and left the bedroom to investigate.”

Cummins said Malinowski warned his wife to stay behind in the bedroom, but Maer [the wife] stubbornly followed him down the hallway. Making potential visual identification worse, Cummings testified, the ATF had killed power to the home. 

“The front room was usually well-lit at night,” he said. “But Maer saw only darkness as she peered down toward the front entryway. She could only see shadowy outlines of presumed home invaders standing in her front hallway. That’s what Bryan saw, too.”

And so, Cummins testified, Bryan Malinowski fired a few shots at the intruders’ feet, apparently to drive them back out the front door. In return, Cummins continued, the ATF shot Bryan Malinowski in the head.

“His wife was standing inches away from him,” he said. “A mere 57 seconds elapsed from the time agents covered the doorbell camera until gunshots erupted and Bryan was fatally wounded.”

The horror of events wasn’t over even with Malinowski’s fatal wound, Cummins testified.

“Agents immediately dragged Mrs. Malinowski into the front yard,” he said. “She was barefoot wearing minimal night clothing, and the temperature was 34 degrees. They locked her in the back seat of a car and detained her there for four or five hours, refusing her many requests to check on her husband, get some clothes on, or even use the neighbor’s bathroom.”

No knock, no knock, who’s there?

In his opening statement, House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said many questions remain unanswered.

“In the early morning hours of March 19, 2024, four armed ATF agents arrived at the Malinowski family home in at least 10 vehicles to execute a search warrant,” Jordan said. “Footage from the Malinowski’s doorbell camera shows ATF agents approaching the house with riot shields and subsequently disabling the camera to prevent their conduct from being recorded.”

The question was, Jordan asked, did the ATF follow proper protocol during the execution of the warrant?

“DOJ [Department of Justice] policy and President Biden’s executive order 14074 requires ATF agents, including those who conducted the search warrant on the Malinowski family home, to wear active body cameras during the execution of that warrant,” he said “The department, however, has since confirmed to the Malinowski family that ATF agents were not wearing body cameras during the raid, a clear violation of the department policy.”

Jordan said it was also unclear whether ATF agents complied with Justice Department policy on no-knock entries.

“In explaining the rationale for this policy, deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco noted that ‘because of the risk posed to both law enforcement and civilians during the execution of no-knock warrants, it is important that this authority be exercised in only the most compelling circumstances,’” Jordan said.

Furthermore, Jordan continued, Monaco directed that the use of no-knock entries should be restricted to instances in which an agent has reasonable grounds to believe that, at the time that the warrant is sought, that knocking and announcing the agent’s presence would create an imminent threat of physical violence to the agent or to another person.

There is no evidence such a threat reasonably existed, Jordan said.

“It’s not clear if the raid was a no-knock encounter because, in part, the ATF agents disabled the Malinowski’s home camera,” Jordan said. “ATF has yet to explain why it resorted to a risky pre-dawn entry of Mr. Malinowski’s home when it could have peacefully executed the warrant while he was away from his residence.”

Jordan said that remained a huge question, but for some reason the ATF wanted Malinowski home when they executed the warrant.

“We know the ATF made a previous attempt to execute the search warrant when they learned Mr. Malinowski wasn’t home,” he said. “They were actually primed and ready to go the week before but didn’t go because he wasn’t there.”

The question was, Jordan asked, why did they need him to be in the home, especially because it was a search warrant and not an arrest warrant?

“In fact, there were numerous other less dangerous options available to the ATF,” he said. “The ATF knew his pattern of life. They could have chosen to wait for Mr. Malinowski to leave for work and safely approached him after he had exited his home. The ATF could have conducted the raid after Mr. Malinowski left for work and had other agents meet him at his work where he was not allowed to carry a firearm.”

“Or the ATF could have waited until he was gone and asked Mrs. Malinowski to call him back after the house was secure,” he said. “ATF agents could have given Mr Malinowski more time to answer the door during the knock and announce so he knew it was the police.”

Unsettling

The absence of body cameras was especially troubling, Jordan said.

“Since the ATF chose to ignore their own policy and not wear body cameras, we will never know if they gave him the 10 seconds or 60 seconds or whatever to answer the door,” he said.

In his testimony, Cummins wondered if the police had actually been instructed not to wear body cameras.

“Even though policies have been in place at both ATF and the Little Rock Police Department for the past three years requiring the use of body-worn cameras when executing any search warrant, DOJ now says no body cameras were used,” he said.

So did ATF instruct the Little Rock Police Department to take off their body cams? Cummings asked. There were other unanswered questions, too, the attorney said, and he reeled them off: Why wasn’t Bryan Malinowski warned that he might be in violation of ATF’s regulation? How did a perceived gun show violation rise to the level of justifying a search warrant application?

What exigent circumstances justified the aggressive tactics of a pre-dawn search warrant execution using a SWAT team and forced entry? Did ATF consider other options to execute the search warrant?

“Did the officers attempt to knock on the door or somehow announce themselves as law enforcement officers?” he asked. “If they knocked and announced, how long did they wait before forcibly entering? Ten seconds? Twenty seconds?”

Cummins said the American people give federal law enforcement awesome powers in the name of law and order, but it’s a huge problem if those powers fall into the wrong hands.

“The shooting death of Bryan Malinowski is the result of an outrageous and unjustifiable abuse of power,” he concluded. “His family, including those present today, his wife Maer, and his sisters Lee and Lynn, deserve to know why this happened. In fact, for two months, Bryan’s family along with people all over Arkansas have asked me one question: ‘Why?’”

Cummins said he didn’t have an answer to that question.

“I hope this committee will help find the answer or, if there isn’t an answer, I hope this committee will find the problem — and fix it,” he testified.

For his part, Jordan said it was a classic example of the weaponization of government.

“Bryan Malinowski loses his life for something that doesn’t even look like there was any crime,” he told Fox News afterward. “I mean, the definition that they were functioning under was, are you selling firearms as your principal livelihood?”

Obviously that was not the case, Jordan said.

“He ran the Bill and Hillary Clinton Airport,” he said. “He was a respected citizen there in Little Rock. He had a hobby of selling some guns, and they come to his home unannounced. They could have done it [searched his house] in a way where you would guarantee there is no one going to get hurt, but instead they did it in the most dangerous way.”

The fundamental question is, Jordan said, “Why? Why did they do it that way?”

The day following Cummins testimony, Jordan and his committee grilled ATF director Steven Dettelbach.

“When you make up the rules as you go, bad things happen,” Jordan told Dettelbach. 

In his opening statement, Dettelbach repeated a claim that he often makes about the mission of the agency, saying the ATF goes after those considered the ‘worst of the worst.”

However, he refused to give details of the events of March, or to explain why he thought Malinowski would be considered the worst of the worst, saying he could not comment on events under investigation. Dettelbach has said the ATF won’t internally review the raid until any potential criminal investigation is first concluded.

Malinowski had no criminal record and had never been arrested..

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) said the agency was employing a double standard.

“You’re playing one of the games that the chair and I didn’t like during Fast & Furious,” Issa said. “… If some group of 10 carloads of people showed up and kicked in the door in the dark of night, and somebody came and shot at them, we wouldn’t be talking about somebody shot in the toes, we would be talking exclusively about a planned murder of somebody who …. had every right to have a weapon in their home, an expectation of a weapon in their home, and an expectation they might use it. …. Mr. Malinowski was killed doing what any normal citizen does when people enter their home during the dark of night, and they don’t know who they are. I believe he had a very real belief he was defending his wife and family, … and you killed him. Those are the facts.”

Issa said he has been investigating ATF for many years. 

“I’ve consistently seen two ATFs: One we need and deserve, and one that plays fast and loose,” he said. “It would have been reasonable to arrest him at work. If you’d done that, he’d be alive today.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.