WASHINGTON – Justice Department leadership is proposing combining the two agencies responsible for enforcing drug and gun laws as part of a dramatic restructuring of the department, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press.
The memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche seeks feedback on a reorganization plan that would combine the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into a single agency “to achieve efficiencies in resources, case deconfliction, and regulatory efforts.”
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It’s part of a broader push by the Trump administration to shrink and reshape the federal government that has already led to a slew of legal challenges. President Donald Trump has directed agencies to develop plans for eliminating employee positions and consolidating programs.
Perhaps the most sweeping part of the Justice Department's plan is a push to merge the DEA and ATF, which often work together along with the FBI but are both led by separate directors and are tasked with distinctly different missions. The memo included no details about how the two agencies would be combined, or whether some of the agents would be eliminated.
The ATF investigates things like violent crime, gun trafficking, arson and bombings. It also provides technical expertise tracing guns used in crimes and analyzing intelligence in shooting investigations. The DEA, meanwhile, is in charge of enforcing the nation's laws around drugs. Its agents are focused on combating criminal drug networks and stemming the illicit flow of fentanyl and other street drugs.
Questions have been raised about the future of the ATF after FBI Director Kash Patel — in an unusual arrangement — was tapped to simultaneously serve as acting leader of the gun law agency. The ATF has long drawn the ire of conservatives for its role in gun regulation.
Gun control group Giffords decried the proposal, saying “cutting resources from ATF would literally be defunding the police."
“The ATF’s mission is to stop violent gun crime and keep the public safe," Giffords' Executive Director Emma Brown said in a statement. "Cutting agents by merging the two agencies would reduce resources, weakening efforts to stop gun traffickers, straw purchasers, and gun dealers who are breaking the law."
The Justice Department plan also calls for combining policy offices in Washington and eliminating certain field offices around the country that work on things like antitrust and environmental matters.
Tax division lawyers as well as employees in the section that handles public corruption cases would be reassigned to U.S. attorneys offices, except for a “core team of supervisory attorneys" that would remain in Washington, according to the proposal.
The AP reported earlier this month that lawyers in the public integrity section, which oversees public corruption cases, were told they will be asked to take new assignments in the department and as few as five lawyers may remain in the unit.
A Justice Department spokesperson didn't immediately provide a comment on the plan, which is not been finalized. Heads of Justice Department agencies were instructed to respond with any concerns about the proposals by April 2.