BATF

[Plane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/us/politics/obama-presses-senate-to-confirm-atf-director.html?_r=0

..................the president said Wednesday that he would nominate the agency’s acting director, B. Todd Jones, to be its permanent leader.

Mr. Jones, 55, a former Marine who is also the United States attorney in Minnesota, has led the beleaguered agency since August 2011, when he was appointed by the administration to take over in the wake of the scandal surrounding the bungled gun trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

“Congress needs to help rather than hinder law enforcement as it does its job,” President Obama said Wednesday. “We should get tougher on people who buy guns with the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals. And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this.”

“Since Congress hasn’t confirmed a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in six years, they should confirm Todd Jones,” he added, “who has been acting and I will be nominating for the post.”

Until 2006, the president had the power to install the bureau’s director without Congressional approval. But under pressure from gun lobbyists, Congress changed the law that year to require Senate confirmation. Since then, the Senate has failed to confirm any nominee by either President George W. Bush or President Obama as senators who support gun rights have used their power under Senate rules to delay votes on nominations; Mr. Jones is the bureau’s fifth acting director since 2006.

One of the more vocal critics of the Justice Department and the firearms bureau, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said on Wednesday that he agreed with the president that it was time for the Senate to confirm a permanent head of the agency, but he raised questions about Mr. Jones’s credibility.

“The new nominee, B. Todd Jones, is a familiar face to the committee, but his ties to the Fast and Furious scandal raise serious questions,” Mr. Grassley said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Jones would receive “a thorough and fair vetting” by the committee.