The White House is steeling itself for a battle over President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Justice Department’s gun agency as allegations of racist remarks and incomplete disclosures call into question his ability to oversee the enforcement body.
David Chipman has already faced a bruising nomination for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives post for his ties to Giffords, a gun violence prevention group run by former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords.
“We’ve been eyes wide open into the challenge from the beginning,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week.
The uptick in violence has become a liability for Biden, which he has sought to address with funding for police officers and a pro-police message.
Chipman “has the exact set of skills and experience [the bureau need] to crack down on gun trafficking, keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” Psaki said.
GRASSLEY HAS BIDEN ATF NOMINEE IN HIS SIGHTS AS HE RENEWS MOVES TO SINK NOMINATION
The delay in confirming Chipman “speaks volumes” about Republican lawmakers’ “complete refusal to tackle the spike in crime we’ve seen over the last 18 months,” she added.
But allegations that Chipman made racist comments during a previous stint at the agency, prompting his departure from the Detroit Field Office, has Republican lawmakers and gun rights activists calling for more scrutiny of his record of leadership.
“If he is the stellar performer that the Biden administration says he is, then the Biden administration or Mr. Chipman himself could release his personnel records,” said Mark Oliva, director of public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry. “Neither one of them has chosen to do that.”
A lawsuit filed by the American Accountability Foundation for Chipman’s personnel records with the agency referenced several possible complaints, with allegations that new reports have appeared to confirm.
“[Chipman] made some comments that he was surprised by the number of African Americans who have made it onto a specific promotional list … So, his insinuation was that they had to have cheated. Which is kind of despicable,” a current ATF agent told the Reload. Other sources corroborated they heard Chipman make racially insensitive statements while at the office, as well as the existence of the report, according to the news site.
Asked during his Senate confirmation hearing whether he had been the subject of any Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints, Chipman said two were filed against him but “were resolved without any finding of discrimination and no disciplinary action was taken against me.”
Oliva questioned his ability to lead an agency with thousands of officers.
“Part of our concern is that he never led any executive-level leadership within ATF,” Oliva said. “When he was a Special Agent in Charge, he was in charge of portfolios and programs. He wasn’t in charge of large groups of personnel. Again, we’re talking about 5,000 people within the ATF that he would have oversight of.”
Chipman has previously advocated reinstating a ban on “assault-style weapons” that was in place from 1994-2004, and Second Amendment advocates fear his appointment to the ATF, which is tasked with enforcing firearms laws and could herald new firearms restrictions.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling for a second hearing after new details about Chipman surfaced.
A new report this week said Chipman failed to disclose to the Senate an appearance on Chinese state television.
“Just today we learned from news reports — not Mr. Chipman — that he had appeared in 2012 on Chinese state television to discuss the Sandy Hook massacre,” the Republican committee members, led by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said in a letter this week to Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois.
“The spectacle of Mr. Chipman discussing gun violence in America while being asked about our gun laws by an organ that, even YouTube notes, is a propaganda machine funded by the Chinese government, is beyond comprehension.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not yet brought the nomination up for a vote, a worrying sign for Chipman, some believe.
In the evenly split Senate, Democrats need every vote to secure his nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the nomination in June, delivering an 11-11 stalemate along party lines.
“If Sen. Schumer and Sen. Durbin thought they had the votes, they would discharge his nomination out of committee,” bringing it to the floor, Oliva said. “That [Schumer] hasn’t done that yet means that he knows he doesn’t have the votes.”
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has indicated to the White House and some Democrats he may not back the nominee, according to Politico.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation last month began airing television advertisements challenging Chipman’s nomination in West Virginia, home to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, and King’s home state of Maine and has been active in closely held states, such as Pennsylvania and Arizona.
In July, Manchin told the Washington Examiner he was undecided.
The West Virginia senator is a key vote for Democrats. Soon after announcing he would not back Biden’s choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, the longtime Democratic operative, withdrew her nomination.
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Oliva said surveys conducted in West Virginia by the NSSF showed that 66% of likely voters could not support David Chipman as ATF director.
Asked about the White House’s strategy to get Chipman confirmed, Psaki declined to give details.
“We knew this wouldn’t be easy,” she said.
