From PBS NewsHour.

Attorney General Pam Bondi was pressed at a budget hearing Monday on how many officers and investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) would be lost to attrition in the upcoming fiscal year, and how the agency would function with less personnel.

Bondi didn’t directly answer the questions from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.,instead saying ATF agents wouldn’t be “knocking on the doors of legal gun owners in the middle of the night, asking them about their guns.”

DeLauro and Bondi had a heated back and forth, DeLauro pressing Bondi on the numbers and Bondi responding that she wasn’t given a chance to speak.

“Tell me what the numbers are,” DeLauro said. “I don’t want to hear all of your filibuster about this.” Quoting from the department’s 2026 budget request, she added that the agency estimated it would lose 541 investigators, 284 support personnel and 186 agents “based on historical attrition pattern."

“The proposal will weaken our ability to stop gun trafficking, and it will greatly reduce ATF support for state and local law enforcement that helps them prevent and solve violent crimes,” DeLauro said.
Bondi testified Monday before the House Appropriations Committee about the Department of Justice’s 2026 budget request.

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