Attorney General Pam Bondi faced lawmakers Monday in her first congressional appearance since her January confirmation, pitching the Justice Department’s 2026 budget to House appropriators. But the hearing quickly devolved into a one-sided shouting match when Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) erupted, repeatedly interrupting Bondi and accusing her of undermining the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
DeLauro claimed Bondi’s budget proposal would “weaken our ability to stop gun trafficking,” citing a 26 percent reduction in ATF funding and projected personnel losses. But according to data provided to Breitbart News by a senior DOJ official, the ATF is already seizing more guns and ammunition than last year, demolishing DeLauro’s narrative.
Exclusive data provided to Breitbart News by a senior DOJ official shows that from January 20 to June 21, 2025, the ATF seized 14,579 firearms — a 33 percent increase over last year. Of those, 8,670 were seized in firearms trafficking cases, including 2,011 bound for Mexico. The agency also confiscated 833,414 rounds of ammunition, marking a 41 percent jump from the same period last year.
“Rep. DeLauro was unprepared for this hearing and clearly has little situational awareness as to what the ATF actually does,” said a senior DOJ official. “She tried to make up for that lack of knowledge by screaming at the Attorney General. The data shows that the ATF is thriving — seizing illegal guns at a higher rate than under the prior administration and playing a key role in dismantling international trafficking networks.”
DeLauro launched into a line of questioning about the proposed 26 percent reduction in ATF funding, demanding to know, “How can you justify such a massive cut without inevitably weakening ATF’s ability to help our state and local law enforcement fight illegal gun trafficking?” She followed up: “How many ATF law enforcement officers and industry operations investigators do you anticipate will be lost to attrition as a result of this funding reduction you are proposing?”
As Bondi attempted to explain that the ATF would be reorganized to work in tandem with the DEA by placing more agents on the street, not fewer, DeLauro repeatedly interrupted her, even demanding a “yes or no” response to a complex budget question and ultimately shouting: “I don’t want to hear all of your filibuster about this.”
Despite the temper tantrum, Bondi made clear: “We will not be having ATF agents go to the doors of gun owners in the middle of the night, asking them about their guns, period.”
Bondi emphasized that the reorganization is designed to boost field operations and crack down on violent crime by combining the efforts of two federal agencies with overlapping missions. She also pushed back on DeLauro’s claims that agents were being let go.
“It will be attrition. We are not firing agents. They will be working,” Bondi said. “They want to be doing their jobs.”
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