Justice Connection Highlights Danger of Defunding ATF

Justice Connection released a video highlighting how the Trump Administration’s proposed defunding of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will make our country less safe.

The video features Pam Hicks, who served as ATF’s chief counsel until she was terminated by Attorney General Pam Bondi in February 2025 after working for the department for 23 years.

“I don’t know how you can say you are an administration that is focused on cartels and violent crime and cut the workforce that gives you so many leads on trafficking to the cartels,” Hicks says in the video. “It is not consistent with the administration’s stated priorities.”

The Justice Department’s 2026 budget proposal seeks to eliminate ATF as a stand-alone law enforcement agency by incorporating it into the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The proposal would reduce its budget by more than $400 million – a 25% decrease from its current operating budget. The cut would eliminate all 541 industry operations investigators, drastically reducing federal oversight of the firearms and explosives industries. Overall staffing would drop from approximately 5,300 to 3,600 people.

“The administration’s proposed