A group of 14 House Democrats is calling on President Donald Trump to remove Kash Patel as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), claiming in a letter that Patel—also serving as head of the FBI—is “someone without experience fighting crime.”
The letter was sent earlier this month and is now just making news. As if to refute the Democrats’ concerns, the FBI just rounded up a third criminal on the “Ten Most Wanted” list.
News of the arrest prompted the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to suggest in a news release that the Democrats “pound sand.”
The March 3 letter was signed by House members Mike Thompson, Robin L. Kelly, Dan Goldman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Eric Swalwell, Mike Quigley, Grace Meng, Nikema Williams, Mark Pocan, Emanuel Cleaver, II, Gwen S. Moore, Jennifer L. McClellan, Haley M. Stevens and Rashida Tlaib. They identify themselves as “members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.”
In the letter, they intimated Patel is “an unqualified partisan” who will “oversee our federal gun violence prevention laws.” They also said crime declined since Congress passed the Bipartisan safer Communities Act in June 2022 under the Joe Biden administration.
But CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb countered their recollection, stating, “Apparently, everybody who signed that letter slept through last year’s stunning revelation that the FBI’s initial report of a 1.7 percent decrease in violent crime had to be quietly adjusted to show a 4.5 percent increase. House Oversight Chairman James Comer even launched a probe of this revision last October.”
In a press release at the time, Comer stated, “The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s failure to compile and report accurate, complete national crime data. The FBI’s recent failures to report accurate data draws into question the veracity of the recently released 2023 Crime in the Nation report, which estimated a 3 percent drop in national violent crime…The Committee is concerned that the FBI’s recent failures to report accurate crime data are politically motivated. The Committee is seeking documents and communications to understand the FBI’s failure to provide Congress and the American people with accurate crime data and whether the 2023 data is, in fact, accurate.”
“Capitol Hill Democrats are delighted to have an ATF which gets mixed up in colossal debacles like ‘Operation Fast and Furious,’” Gottlieb said in a prepared statement, “or cancelling federal firearms licenses because a small dealer might make a technical paperwork error. Yet, where have these Democrats been when their colleagues have championed legislation making it tougher for law-abiding citizens to exercise their full rights under the Second Amendment? Where were they when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were advocating for gun bans and restrictions on the rights of young adults? They were right there pushing for and cheering such infringements.”
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