WASHINGTON — President Obama’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota B. Todd Jones, already faced an uphill battle toward confirmation, given gun-rights advocates’ long-time skittishness toward the bureau and their influence over congressional debates on gun laws.
But Thursday brought two bad headlines for Jones, ATF’s acting director whom Obama nominated in January as part of a new push to reduce gun violence.
The first comes via a former FBI special agent who wrote a blistering letter about Jones’ nomination to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Donald Oswald calls Jones “a significant impediment for federal law enforcement to effectively protect the citizens of Minnesota from violent gang, drug, and gun activities.” He describes complaints about Jones from every sector of Twin Cities law enforcement, potential political motivations in Jones’ hiring practices, and a 40 percent decrease in prosecutions pursued by the Attorney’s Office in Jones’ third year as director.
The Star Tribune has a thorough breakdown of the allegations in Oswald’s letter.
Jones supporters circled the wagons on Thursday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office told the Star Tribune that Jones has looked to bring in larger and more difficult cases, thus the declining prosecution numbers. He also got the backing of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, the FBI special agent who preceded Oswald and former Minneapolis Police Chief Tom Dolan.
Both Minnesota senators sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee and told the Star Tribune they would “review Jones' record and all information provided to it during the nomination process.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (who recommended Jones’ U.S. Attorney nomination in 2007) gave him a favorable review: "As a former prosecutor, Sen. Klobuchar takes enforcement of violent crimes very seriously. She had a positive working relationship with Mr. Jones on these issues when she was Hennepin County attorney and knows they are important to him as well.”
It appears he’ll find less support with Judiciary Committee Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley, who called the allegations “disturbing.”
Jones was already on Grassley’s radar on Thursday. The Iowa Republican used a Judiciary Committee meeting to threaten holding up his nomination until the Department of Justice released 1,200 pages of documents related to a congressional investigation into an alleged quid pro quo between the agency and the City of St. Paul (More info on that case is here).
“As the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, he was aware of this arrangement and the details of how the agreement came to be,” Grassley said. “His emails are among the 1,200 documents that the Justice Department has refused to produce to the House and Senate as part of this investigation. At a minimum, those documents are necessary for us to completely and thoroughly examine his background and fitness to lead an agency that is riddled with problems.”
Grassley has already raised concerns over Jones’ handing of the ATF after the Fast and Furious sting operation. Jones took over the agency on an interim basis after Fast and Furious fell apart, but Grassley said Thursday that Jones wouldn’t make officials available for congressional interviews on the subject.
The ATF hasn’t had a full-time director since Congress passed a law in 2006 requiring the Senate sign off on all ATF nominees. Gun rights groups opposed nominees from both Presidents Bush and Obama, whose first nominee, Andrew Traver, never even received a hearing.
Between the Oswald letter, the St. Paul investigation and questions over his role in the Fast and Furious, it’s not impossible to imagine Jones’s nomination seeing the same fate.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry