New FBI Director Kash Patel was sworn in Monday as acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, taking the helm of two separate and sprawling Justice Department agencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Patel was sworn in at ATF headquarters just days after he became director of the FBI, said the person who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
It’s not immediately clear if President Donald Trump intends to nominate Patel for the ATF post, or what the administration’s plans are for the agency that has long been the target of Republicans. Justice Department and White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Patel will now oversee the bureau of roughly 5,500 employees that’s responsible for enforcing the nation’s laws around firearms, explosives and arson. Among other things, it’s in charge of licensing federal firearms dealers, tracing guns used in crimes and analyzing intelligence in shooting investigations.
Democrats raised alarm at Patel’s nomination for FBI director over his lack of management experience compared to past directors and because of a vast catalog of incendiary past statements, which include calling investigators who scrutinized Trump “government gangsters.”
Gun safety groups that opposed Patel’s nomination as FBI director highlighted his support for Gun Owners of America, a gun rights group that has called for the ATF to be abolished. In a social media post, the group called Patel a “patriot who understands that the Second Amendment right of the People to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”
Patel spoke at Gun Owners of America conference last year, telling the crowd: “My mission is your mission and spread it across America and utilize it to defeat the most destructive operation in U.S. history. And that is unelected bureaucrats seizing our Constitutional rights from you every single day and chipping away at your freedoms every single day.”
The move to install Patel as ATF director follows Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s firing of the bureau’s top lawyer last week.
Bondi said Friday in a Fox News interview that she fired chief counsel Pamela Hicks because the agency was “targeting gun owners.” Hicks, who spent more than 20 years as a Justice Department lawyer, said in a social media post that being ATF chief counsel was the “highest honor” of her career.