President Barack Obama has not appointed a new head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) since B. Todd Jones resigned as director in March 2015, even as the bureau implements Obama’s executive actions to tighten gun policy. And with only one year left in his term, it appears unlikely the president will nominate another director.
Jones’s resignation happened amid the agency’s proposed effort to ban the popular 5.56 M855 bullet used in AR-15’s. The director position, which requires Senate confirmation, remains empty, and the ATF’s deputy director Thomas E. Brandon currently leads the agency.
Obama asked for 200 additional ATF agents and investigators to enforce the nation’s gun laws and expand background checks in his executive actions.
Brandon, who temporarily took the reigns of the agency during the Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal, was given the job of deputy director in October 2015 after he could no longer legally serve as “acting director” of the ATF.
“We’re not going to nominate you, but we have full confidence in you if you stay at the ATF,” Brandon said, recounting the explanation he received from the White House.
Brandon could not hold that interim title for longer than 120 days by law and time was running out, so the president changed his title but never appointed another director.
“If they don’t nominate anybody and I revert back to just the deputy director, but I’m still the CEO, I will give the taxpayers what I’ve always given them: a hard day’s work,” Brandon told Politico.