ATF boss unfazed by firearm probe
BY FRANK MAIN fmain@suntimes.com October 26, 2011 10:32AM
ATF Acting Director B. Todd Jones talks about his new position during an interview at the ATF Chicago Field Division office, 525 W. Van Buren, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011, in Chicago. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times
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Updated: January 23, 2012 4:08AM
The new acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is pledging to continue a crackdown on firearms trafficking from the United States to Mexico — despite embarrassing revelations about an ATF gun probe on the Southwest border.
B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis, was appointed about seven weeks ago as acting ATF director. He was in Chicago for a convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Jones, who will remain U.S. attorney in Minneapolis as he runs ATF, said he’s been busy dealing with the fallout over Operation Fast and Furious, a subject of inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department.
Beginning in 2009, ATF agents allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal “straw purchasers” in an effort to track the guns to Mexican drug cartel leaders. Yet the agents reportedly lost track of more than 2,000 firearms, two of which were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.
Earlier this month, Jones announced several high-level ATF management changes linked to the scandal. But in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, he said the inquiries into Fast and Furious won’t hinder gun cases.
“There was firearms trafficking going on from the United States to Mexico before this case went awry,” Jones said. “And there will be going forward. Our job as a law enforcement agency is to do the best job we can to disrupt and dismantle organizations and individuals who are engaged in that business. And that’s not going to stop.”
Jones is the latest in a string of acting directors to run ATF since 2006, when Senate confirmation for the director’s job was required for the first time. The National Rifle Association and Republicans have opposed the nominees of both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, accusing their choices of being too cozy with anti-gun groups.
In November 2010, Obama nominated Andrew Traver, the head of Chicago’s ATF office, to become ATF’s national director, but he’s still waiting for a Senate hearing. Both Illinois senators back Traver’s nomination.
Speaking of his goals for ATF, he said the bureau “can do a better job identifying the worst of the worst and make sure they come into federal court and get long terms of confinement.” In Minnesota, he and state prosecutors worked together to review every gun case. Jones said he prosecuted armed career criminals under the Hobbs Act, which carries the possibility of a life sentence.
Jones said the same strategy could work across the country. He pointed to two armed robbers in Minnesota who pleaded guilty under the Hobbs Act and were sentenced to 30 years in prison. They would have received only eight to 10 years in state court.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons listened to some inmates’ phone conversations and heard they were worried about the strategy, Jones said.
“They heard people in the pokey talking about not doing dirt with a gun because the feds may grab you,” he said.
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