The Trump admin tried to merge DEA and ATF. After pressure, it quietly abandoned the plan
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Source: CNN Politics
Updated Jan 17, 2026, 10:57 AM ET
PUBLISHED Jan 17, 2026, 7:00 AM ET
After pushback from both gun rights and gun control groups, the Trump administration has quietly abandoned its plan to merge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to people briefed on the matter. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced plans last year to merge ATF into the DEA, a proposal that would require Congressional budgetary approval and is part of the early administration-wide effort to shrink the size of federal government agencies.
Officials involved in the proposal told CNN at the time of Blanche’s proposal that the two agencies had different missions — ATF is tasked with investigating violent crime, gun trafficking, arson and bombings, while DEA agents enforce the nation’s drug laws — but they naturally went hand-in-hand. “Where there are drugs there are usually guns, and where there are guns there are usually drugs,” one of the officials previously told CNN.
The effort was re-affirmed in June, when Justice Department officials suggested eliminating the ATF “as a separate component, with its functions merged into the Drug Enforcement Administration,” leaving the DEA as “a single component that will address violent crime, drug enforcement, and crimes relating to firearms” in their budget proposal.
Administration officials’ expectations that pro-Trump gun-rights groups would welcome the plans were dashed almost immediately. Some conservative and gun-rights groups have long called for the ATF’s abolishment but raised concerns that a merger with another agency would empower the agency’s gun-related efforts, not weaken them.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/17/politics/trump-plan-merge-atf-dea-quietly-abandoned
REFERENCES
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143427285
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143484817
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143489612
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