Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina The White House says it still backs DAVID CHIPMAN to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a nomination that’s been stalled in the Senate amid pushback from the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates. Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND has personally reached out to several senators to ask for their support and explain why Chipman’s confirmation is so important, a Justice Department official told West Wing Playbook. And Chipman has been meeting one-on-one with senators (17 in total). He has also, according to a White House official, met with several law enforcement groups, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Sheriffs Association; and participated in a Zoom town hall focused on gun rights with West Virginia constituents — hosted by Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), one of several centrist Democrats wavering on his nomination. “As you all know, ATF is on the front lines of our efforts to battle gun violence,” Garland told ATF agents in Washington last week. “We are very hopeful that the Senate will soon act.” But all that glad-handing and outreach has yet to be enough. Chipman, who previously spent 25 years at ATF, remains dogged by his time as a senior policy adviser to Giffords, a gun control advocacy group, where he pushed for sharp reforms to gun laws. And the dragging out of his nomination has begun to imperil Biden’s own gun agenda. ATF is used to being rudderless — it has had just one director since the position was converted from a political appointment to one that required Senate confirmation in 2006, because of opposition from the NRA and gun rights groups. That lack of direction hasn’t boded well for the agency, according to retired ATF agents who spoke to West Wing Playbook. A permanent director, they say, would be able to advocate for the agency’s 5,082 employees. It would prioritize a budget — and agents in the field who have expertise in the gun violence issues plaguing the country today, like gun trafficking, would have more of a say. “There's a lack of continuity without a permanent director,” said MARK JONES, a retired ATF agent. Jones noted the FBI has a director that’s granted a 10-year term. Other federal agencies have similar terms: without an appointed director, ATF just doesn't “have the scope that they have,” Jones said. At the same time, ATF agents are known to work well with other local agencies, and are regularly pulled into White House initiatives to combat gun violence. Biden’s gun agenda includes cross-jurisdictional strike forces in five major cities to target straw purchasers and unlicensed gun dealers. Jones says that the plans are “nothing new” and merely “a repackaging.” “I’ve worked for four presidents. Every single one that comes in starts a new initiative. They call it something different. This time it’s strike forces. In my time, it was Project Achilles. Operation Trigger Lock,” said Jones. “And it’s mostly a public relations effort when they make these announcements to let everybody know that we're trying to address this stuff. And it’s the Biden administration, not ATF that’s driving that.” But “repackaging” aside, Jones noted the Biden administration has made a public commitment to try to support the ATF, something he said he hasn’t seen in his career. And he’s hoping their push to confirm Chipman will help the agency. DAVID ZIEGLER — a retired ATF agent and an NRA “life member” — said Biden’s gun plan will be in jeopardy should he not get his pick confirmed. Ziegler has been a loud voice in the ATF community, penning a USA Today op-ed urging the Senate to confirm Chipman. “I think, similar to almost any other bureaucratic agency, the leader sets the tone. And that tone certainly works itself down to field agents who do the actual work,” he said. ATF wouldn’t comment on questions about the need for a permanent director, saying they don’t comment on pending nominations. For gun rights groups, the leadership vacuum may be just what they prefer. They are aggressively targeting Chipman. The NRA said it opposes Chipman’s nomination in part because of his support for a ban on semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and because he would “force law-abiding gun owners to register their firearms”—an attack line they extrapolate from Chipman’s support for a plan to regulate “assault weapons” under the National Firearms Act. “If confirmed, he would use every tool at his disposal to remove what our Founding Fathers sacrificed to preserve,” NRA spokesman LARS DALSEIDE said in an email. All 50 Republicans oppose Chipman, meaning that all 50 Democrats will have to back his confirmation for it to happen. That a vote hasn’t taken place yet confirms they don’t have the numbers ... yet. A source familiar with the administration’s thinking said Democrats plan to tie GOP opposition to his nomination to the broader failure by Republicans to support law enforcement in efforts to reduce gun crime. White House rapid response director MIKE GWIN said in a statement that, “confronting the epidemic of gun violence head-on is a cornerstone of the President’s gun crime strategy, and he looks forward to the Senate quickly voting on Chipman’s nomination as ATF Director.” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you NICHOLAS BLOSSER? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous s end us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
