In a note to Secrets, the spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that Director Steve Dettelbach told President Joe Biden of his plans after the White House provided guidance for leaving service before the new president was sworn in.

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“Leading the courageous and incredible men and women of ATF has been the greatest honor of his professional life,” Kristina Mastropasqua said of Dettelbach.

In his letter to Biden, Dettelbach highlighted a drop in violent crime as a key success during his leadership of the ATF. “That progress did not occur by accident,” he said.

The ATF has a leading role in the investigations of the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans and the vehicle explosion at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.

Gun groups cheered his departure in part because they claimed the ATF under Dettelbach turned against firearms owners and suppliers.

He has been criticized for the ATF’s flip-flop on the legality of gun accessories, such as pistol braces on AR-style weapons, and a crackdown on gun stores and gun shows.

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President @RealDonaldTrump challenges the ATF at #NRAConvention

“I will order the ATF to stop bullying gun store owners…and instead go after drug dealers, human traffickers and criminal cartels.” pic.twitter.com/ow9TUeacIz

— NRA (@NRA) April 14, 2023

“That’s one less person Trump will have to fire after he takes office,” said Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “and it is one less gun prohibition lobbyist on the government payroll.”

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Trump has been under pressure to curb the powers of or just eliminate the ATF. During the campaign, he pledged to turn the agency’s attention to crime, not guns.

Biden has spent years trying to ban guns and used his powers as president to push limits, but most major gun control threats went nowhere. He lost any high ground when he pardoned his son, Hunter, who was facing gun charges.

Groups, including the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, have been in talks with the Trump transition team on who they would support for a new ATF director, though they declined to provide any names to Secrets.

However, NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin told Secrets that he expects Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, to play a major role in selecting the new ATF director, and the group is highly supportive of her.

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Gottlieb said that he wants somebody as director who is familiar with guns and supports the Second Amendment.

“We are hopeful the next ATF director will straighten the record by telling Congress, the media and the gun prohibition lobby that modern semiautomatic rifles are not ‘weapons of war,’ and that there is not, and never was, a ‘gun show loophole.’ The next ATF director should know how to disassemble a pistol instead of trying to regulate it out of existence. He should lobby Congress for funds to revive restoration-of-rights procedures, and stop harassment of lawful, small business firearms retailers. He should be someone willing to visit a gun show rather than shut it down,” he said in a statement.