Kash Patel tapped to oversee ATF as acting director

It appears that recently confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel will be occupying two offices in the foreseeable future.

Patel was just tapped as the acting Director of ATF by Trump.

I would suspect that Patel will have much the same agenda in the ATF as he does for the FBI.

Cleaning House

When Joe Biden was in office, he tapped a director, Steven Dettelbach, who was more interested in pushing gun control than putting the ATF agents on the street to do their jobs.

While Biden was in office, the ATF did its best to circumvent Congress, putting new rules in place to ban stabilizers for AR-pistols as well as additional "ghost gun" regulations.

Most of these actions were attacked by the gun lobby as well as the ire of Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), who suggested, “Eliminate this redundant agency that consistently violates Second Amendment rights.”

I am sure that Patel's name drew a shiver up the spine of current ATF staffers, but he has yet to announce his plans for the agency.

Something else of note regarding Patel is that he and Musk are about ready to butt heads over the latest directive to come from DOGE.

Musk had sent out an email to all government employees last week, telling them to surmise their work week accomplishments. Failure to answer his email would be considered a resignation.

Musk stated that his letter was meant to expose blatant fraud and waste in the government, but Patel has already ordered FBI employees to pause their response, and Patel was not alone.

Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, did the same thing, as did Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and reports were flying that numerous other agency heads had also directed their staff to ignore the request by Musk.

Patel wrote to staffers, “FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information.

“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.

“When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

What shocks me about this is that Musk did not bother to get on the same page with everyone before sending out his request.

This gives the appearance that administration officials are not on the same page and, quite frankly, it makes Musk look foolish.

It also gives the appearance that Trump has no idea what is going on right now, as one would think that Trump would have approved such a request, and informed all department heads before this memo was sent out.

I have yet to see a response from the White House, but Trump definitely needs to make a statement about this soon. It may just be a small burning ember right now, but with the media the way it is today, this will become an uncontrollable wildfire if it is not addressed.