WASHINGTON — Another piece of President Obama’s gun-control agenda has backfired.
Obama’s nomination of B. Todd Jones for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a move the president touted in his plan to thwart gun violence — only rekindled the fight yesterday over the agency’s botched Fast and Furious gun-tracking program.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called the nomination of Jones, currently the agency’s acting director, a “slap in the face to Fast and Furious victims.”
“Acting Director Jones was at the helm of ATF as many troubling problems from the fallout of Operation Fast and Furious festered,” fumed Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Issa’s committee is investigating the ATF gun-sting operation that was launched in 2009 and lost track of about 1,400 firearms.
Two assault rifles turned up in the Arizona desert where a border-patrol agent was killed, and more were found at murder scenes in Mexico.