Joe Biden's nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), David Chipman, will not be dragged onto the Hill again for another round of questioning following some serious allegations of racism. There are other issues as well, including whether this man will be effective as the head of this agency. The rank-and-file are concerned about stopping illegal guns, not enforcing a left-wing, anti-Second Amendment campaign, which Stephen Gutowski of The Reload reported.
He added that Chipman would denigrate black ATF agents who were set for a promotion. Gutowski spoke with a current ATF official who told him that Chipman "made some comments that he was surprised by the number of African Americans who have made it onto a specific promotional list…his insinuation was that they had to have cheated. Which is kind of despicable."
NEW → Every @SenJudiciaryGOP member, led by @ChuckGrassley, is seeking a follow-up hearing and more info about the nomination of David Chipman to be Director of @ATFHQ following now-corroborated reports of racist comments directed at other ATF employees. https://t.co/LJTlCKRyJF
— Senate Judiciary Republicans (@SenJudiciaryGOP) July 29, 2021
Chipman's reputation as a gun-grabber would hamper illegal gun trafficking operations as federally licensed dealers would be reluctant to work with this Bloomberg lackey. Senate Republicans wanted new hearings to address these latest developments, but it's not going to happen. Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) killed any notion of a new round of hearings and even attacked Gutowski as someone running an extremist anti-gun safety website. That's just pure comedy:
President Joe Biden’s ATF nominee will not face further scrutiny from the Senate despite newly corroborated claims he made racist remarks during his time at the agency.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said no on Monday to a request to bring nominee David Chipman back for a second hearing. The committee’s Republicans had unanimously requested a new hearing to investigate accusations Chipman had a complaint filed against him over racist remarks made while working for the agency. Durbin called the allegations “baseless” and attacked The Reload for publishing accounts of ATF agents discussing their knowledge of the situation.
Durbin accused The Reload of being an “extreme anti-gun safety website” and implied its sources were made up.
“Now comes the latest salvo—a claim published by an anti-gun safety website, allegedly based on the accounts of two anonymous individuals, that Mr. Chipman had made racially discriminatory remarks when he served at ATF,” he wrote in a letter. “As with the other claims manufactured by Mr. Chipman’s opponents, there is no evidence to support these allegations.”
Durbin’s refusal to schedule a second hearing on Chipman comes after two ATF sources said they had heard of Chipman denigrating black agents while on assignment in the agency’s Detroit bureau.
[…]
The former agent specifically responded to Senator Durbin’s letter.
“Dear Senator Durbin, while I wish to remain anonymous, it is only because I am non-partisan and wish to remain so in this hyper-partisan era,” the agent told The Reload. “As I and others made quite clear, Dave Chipman was a very decent person when I knew him and worked with him at ATF. Far from attacking his character, something I find abhorrent, I clearly and plainly stated that Dave and his views, which he expressed before your committee for all to hear, are not what ATF and the country need. Any ATF agent who has worked cases and actually handcuffed the worst of the worst violent suspects, as my record of convictions shows I did over my career before I retired, knows this. Our nation’s inner cities and those most vulnerable within them don’t need ‘gun safety measures.’ Rather, they need ATF’s leadership, powerful federal firearms statutes targeting violent offenders, and strong federal sentencing to keep these offenders off the streets once we, or our state and local partners, arrest them (the opposite of the ‘revolving door’ we encounter in so many of our great cities). ATF needs a confirmed director. We simply don’t need one who, for reasons I do not understand, has chosen to embrace every wrong-headed idea.”
I think the longer this guy's vote is held in limbo, the chances for a successful confirmation dwindle. Biden does not have much political capital, and there are wild cards that could gum up the works for the Democratic side of the aisle—Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).
For Democrats, there is very little room for error in a 50-50 chamber, and given Sinema's intense independent streak and Manchin coming from a deep-red state, confirming a radical gun-grabber like this could spell trouble. Sinema already has to watch her left flank. Then again, she's not going to let Chuck tell her what to do, and Arizonans love their guns too.
More to the point, it's the whole hypocrisy of it all. If a GOP nominee had a racism issue bubble up, you know the Democrats and the media would have all the hearings they needed to sink the nomination. Democrats are taking evasive maneuvers, and we all know the reasons why.