presidential nominations

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Donald, What Are You Thinking?

February 13, 2025 by 5 Comments

Semafor.com reported yesterday that Sarah Rogers of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, has been nominated by President Trump to the the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. This is confirmed by the White House as her name was included in a list of over 50 nominations for various positions that must be confirmed by the Senate.

Brewer firm photo

The nominations include a New York lawyer, Sarah Rogers, who has defended the National Rifle Association on free speech grounds and litigated against content moderation. Her appointment to be the under secretary for public diplomacy — a role that had, in the Biden administration, been involved in efforts to combat false information on social media, signals that the Trump administration is planning to globalize its push to force social platforms to allow a wider range of speech…

Rogers has no obvious foreign policy experience, but brings a similar point of view on key issues around speech and social media platforms. A partner at the New York litigation boutique Brewer, Rogers represented the National Rifle Association alongside the ACLU in a winning appeal to the Supreme Court last March. She also represented the NRA against the New York State Attorney General, who was seeking to dissolve the organization, which the NRA beat back on First Amendment grounds.

I will acknowledge that Rogers was a co-counsel along with Bill Brewer and Noah Peters on NRA v. Vullo. However, and this is an important point, the counsel of record and the heavy lifter in this case at the SCOTUS was First Amendment law expert Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law. Once the ACLU was brought into the case, you had as many as 10 of their attorneys working on the case while Prof. Volokh remained the Counsel of Record.

While Judge Cohen did mention the First Amendment in his ruling taking dissolution off the table in People of NY v NRA et al, it seems to me to be more of an after thought. He only devoted one paragraph to that argument. More important in his 42-page ruling was whether or not the New York Attorney General alleged facts sufficient to meet the standard for judicial dissolution. He found that she did not. He said you could not conflate “the Individual Defendants with the NRA writ large for purposes of dissolution is inappropriate here for the reasons” he discussed earlier. He went on to say it was the members of the NRA who had suffered the most harm and not the general public.

Rogers did participate in most of the hearings in the New York case as the primary litigator for the NRA. I will give her that.

Trump has in the past shown a certain affection for those educated at Ivy League schools. Rogers satisfies that criteria with an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and a law degree from Columbia. The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy heads the Bureau of Global Public Affairs (PR for the USA) and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (cultivating personal ties with current and future global leaders). Without trying to be snarky, she will be running the fluffier stuff at the State Department.

While Ms. Rogers will be taking a cut in pay, I’m going to say it probably is worth it to get away from Bill Brewer and his shenanigans. Down the road, I’m sure she will be able to parlay her experience as an Under Secretary of State into a prime partnership with a New York or DC law firm.

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Who Should Be Trump’s Pick To Head ATF?

December 13, 2024 by 9 Comments

One of the major nominations not yet released by President Trump is who will head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. I think it goes without debate that current head Steve Dettelbach will be replaced.

Two names that have been suggested are Brandon Herrera, aka The AK Guy, and Blake Masters.

Herrera would love to see the ATF abolished and there has been a vocal campaign to have him nominated for the position. He has indicated he’d accept the position if offered. He ran as a pro-gun candidate in the GOP primary against incumbent US Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and lost by a mere 400 votes in a run-off.

A second person who has been suggested is Blake Master of Arizona. A protégé of venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Masters is a lawyer and venture capitalist. He lost the Arizona US Senate race in 2022 to Mark Kelly and was defeated in a GOP primary for Congress this year. Like Herrera, he has touted his 2A credentials.

I have a modest proposal for an alternative that meets all the criteria: law enforcement experience, knows guns, is comfortable testifying before Congress, and is a real 2A activist.

Dianna Muller!

Law enforcement experience? Di served 22 years with the Tulsa Police Department including units dealing with drugs and gangs. She has the street cred to be respected by ATF special agents. Moreover, I have no doubt she can outshoot almost every one of them.

Knows guns? Professional shooter, two-time national 3-gun champion, hunter, and the list goes on and on. While not a gunsmith, she could hold her own with the ATF’s Technical Branch.

Testified before Congress? Dianna has testified multiple times before Congress and is famous for saying she would “not comply” with any AWB.

2A activist? She founded The DC Project which has now become Women for Gun Rights. I was at the SHOT Show in 2015 and attended her rollout of the idea. It was smart then and it is smart today. She recognized that having women from all 50 states go to Congress and lobby for gun rights was an effective way of delivering the message. Their motto of Educate, Not Legislate is an effective message and their teal t-shirts really stand out.

2020 Turn SHOT Teal
DC Project Photo

I haven’t run this by Di and I have no idea if she would even consider it. I know I’d be running the other way but Di has always impressed me as a someone who is willing to step up when needed. I do know if Dianna isn’t interested or willing someone else from Women for Gun Rights like Holly Sullivan who also heads the Connecticut Citizens Defense League would make a great alternative.

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This Might Be Of Assistance To Judge Maldonado

March 21, 2024 by 5 Comments

US District Court Judge Nancy Maldonado of the Northern District of Illinois has been nominated by President Biden for a position as a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She has been a judge on the District Court since 2022. According to her judicial biography, she received her undergraduate degree from Harvard and her law degree from Columbia.

During her confirmation hearing yesterday, she was questioned about an amicus brief submitted by the Brady Center supporting a ban on “assault weapons” (sic) in Illinois. She was the attorney who had signed the brief. Signing a brief is a serious matter for any attorney. As TypeLaw points out, signing a brief attests to the fact that the attorney has read the brief and that the information contained in it is accurate and complete. Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure says that a lawyer signing a brief attests that the “factual contentions have evidentiary support.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) comes across as folksy and non-threatening. Nonetheless, he is like a dog with a bone when he is questioning a witness or, in this case, the nominee Judge Maldonado. He pressed her on what she meant by assault weapon. It was a joy to watch.

To help out Judge Maldonado the next time she is asked, I present this recent video from Ian McCollum aka The Gun Jesus. It is a short video in which he defines exactly what is an “assault rifle”. Unlike the term “assault weapon” (sic) which was a made-up term by Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center to scare suburban soccer moms, an assault rifle is an actual thing and an actual term.

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Dettelbach – Never Owned A Firearm

June 19, 2022 by 2 Comments

Steve Dettelbach is the nominee of President Biden to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It is both a regulatory and law enforcement agency. Part of its mission is to serve as the primary agency regulating the firearms industry. Another part of its mission is combating violent crime.

As I posted earlier in the week, the Senate Judiciary Committee tied 11-11 on whether to advance Dettelbach’s nomination. It still can go forward as the Senate Majority Leader can bring him up for a vote in case of a tie. Prior to voting on Dettelbach, the committee held a hearing as well as submitted written questions for the record.

You would assume that anyone charged with regulating an industry have some knowledge of it and its products. In this case you would be wrong.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) (among others) submitted a number of questions. The answers that Dettelbach gave somewhat astounded me.

Have you ever owned a firearm?
RESPONSE: No.

Have you ever been issued a firearm in a professional capacity?
RESPONSE: No.

As to whether Dettelbach has ever shot a firearm, here is his answer to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Have you ever used a firearm? If so, when and under what circumstances?
RESPONSE: Yes. As a youth, I engaged in target shooting with rifles on numerous occasions. In my time as a Department of Justice employee, on several occasions I was hosted at federal and local law enforcement shooting ranges and afforded the opportunity to target shoot with different types of firearms. Finally, as an adult, I have taken my son to shoot targets with rifles several times.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Ranking Member and former Chair of the Committee, asked a number of questions of Dettelbach including this one:

The Director of the ATF should be familiar with firearms. To that end, have you ever shot a firearm? How many times have you shot a firearm in the last five years?


RESPONSE: As a youth, I engaged in target shooting with rifles on numerous occasions. In my time as a Department of Justice employee, on several occasions I was hosted at federal and local law enforcement shooting ranges and afforded the opportunity to target shoot with different firearms. Finally, as an adult, I have taken my son to shoot targets with rifles several times. I am not sure of all the dates, but I believe at least one such occasion was within the last five years.

Sen. Grassley also asked if Dettelbach had any meeting or communications with Everytown, Giffords, or the Brady Campaign. He reports that he didn’t have any meeting with Everytown but did have one remote meeting each with people from Giffords and the Brady Campaign. Both of those meeting were about him giving his background and them giving a presentation of their goals and objectives.

My concern is not really that Dettelbach has not owned a firearm. That is his choice. However, his experience, if you read between the lines, seems to be with .22 rimfire rifles. His lack of experience with firearms makes him dependent upon the so-called experts at BATFE. The same experts who once upon a time defined a shoelace as a machine gun and that concerns me.

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Senate Judiciary Committee Ties On Dettelbach

June 16, 2022 by

The Senate Judiciary Committee held their business meeting this morning to consider a handful of nominations. Included in the list was that of Steven Dettelbach to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The vote of his nomination was an 11-11 tie.

Given that all the Democrats who “support the Second Amendment but…” are in line to vote for him along with at least one or two RINOs, I think he will be confirmed. While not as obviously bad as David Chipman, he does have an anti-gun history and will do his damnedest to screw over gun owners through regulation.

GOA released this Tweet on his nomination. While it may be a bit futile, it still might alert the Republicans who are capitulating on gun control that it is not that smart of a move after all.

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Tweet Of The Day

April 12, 2022 by

The tweet of the day comes from the Firearms Policy Coalition. It points out that President Biden’s new nominee to head BATFE, Steve Dettelbach, is like David Chipman but without the paper trail.

I love the play on the old Scooby Doo cartoon as well.

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Chipman Nomination Formally Withdrawn

September 9, 2021 by

While speculation earlier today was that the White House would announce the withdrawal of the nomination of David Chipman to be the director of BATFE next week, it came to an end much quicker. The White House formally withdrew the nomination this afternoon.

The formal announcement by the White House:

David Chipman spent 25 years in distinguished service to our country as an ATF agent. He’s a gun owner himself, and someone who has the backing of law enforcement groups. And, he’s spent most of last decade as a leading voice for commonsense gun violence prevention legislation that will save lives. He would have been an exemplary Director of the ATF and would have redoubled its efforts to crack down on illegal firearms traffickers and help keep our communities safe from gun violence.

Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress have made clear that they intend to use gun crime as a political talking point instead of taking serious steps to address it. That’s why they’ve moved in lockstep to block David Chipman’s confirmation, and it’s why they side with gun manufacturers over the overwhelming majority of the American people in opposing commonsense measures like universal background checks.

They even unanimously opposed the Rescue Plan, which has given cities and states $350 billion that they can use to put more cops on the beat so that they can really know the neighborhoods they patrol, and invest in proven community anti-violence programs – among other uses. While my administration has worked to strengthen law enforcement and crack down on gun crime, Republicans have opposed us at every turn.

We knew this wouldn’t be easy – there’s only been one Senate-confirmed ATF Director in the Bureau’s history – but I have spent my entire career working to combat the scourge of gun violence, and I remain deeply committed to that work. Since taking office, my Administration has taken numerous steps to combat gun violence, and we’ll continue to use every tool at our disposal to fight gun violence and keep Americans safe. I am grateful for Mr. Chipman’s service and for his work.  

I find it interesting that they are blaming firearms manufacturers and Republicans for the defeat. The reality is that David Chipman was a bad nominee, had plenty of baggage, and represented an extreme viewpoint. He was so extreme that you could not come up with enough Democrats to back his nomination.

On a snarky note, I think the person most upset by the failed nomination has to be Gabby Giffords. She thought she was finally going to be rid of Waco Dave and finds she is stuck with him.

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Chipman Nomination Being Withdrawn?

September 9, 2021 by 2 Comments

In breaking news, the Daily Caller and Politico are reporting that the White House plan to withdraw the nomination of David Chipman to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

From the Daily Caller:

Senate Republicans across the board opposed Chipman, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling him an “anti-gun extremist” and Independent Maine Sen. Angus King previously noting he was not okay with the nomination, Politico reported. While Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana didn’t openly oppose Chipman, they wouldn’t give a definitive answer on where they stood, the report added.

The White House may withdraw Chipman’s nomination in the coming days, although an official date remains unclear, according to Politico.

Politico is attributing this to three sources “close to the process.”

They went on to add:

The White House declined to comment on the imminent yanking of the nomination. It’s unclear when the formal withdrawal of Chipman’s nomination will take place, though it could happen as soon as this week…

Nonetheless, the decision to pull the nomination sparked frustration from gun control advocate Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla. “I am truly upset,” tweeted Guttenberg, a Biden ally. “We have weak people serving the Senate such as @SenAngusKing who chose to listen to ‘regulated industry.’ Sadly the White House failed to put up a fight on this.”

While I say good riddance, I am fearful that the White House will nominate a stealth candidate who will be just as bad but without the baggage of David Chipman.

UPDATE: The Washington Post also is reporting on this story. They are putting the timeline as this week.

They added this:

The White House declined to comment. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about Chipman, who currently is a senior adviser to the Giffords gun control group. White House officials are trying to find another role in the administration for Chipman, said the people familiar with the matter.

Perhaps they can send him to Afghanistan to urge the Taliban to register all their confiscated M4s with the BATFE under the NFA. Yeah, right.

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Disclosure Is A Problem For David Chipman

August 12, 2021 by

When you are a nominee for a position that requires Senate confirmation, it is incumbent upon you to disclose everything. By everything, I mean everything. You gave a talk to Ms. Miller’s third grade class, you disclose it. You gave a speech to a group of lawyers, you disclose it. You wrote an op-ed that ran in a free paper, you disclose it. You have blogged for years under a pseudonym, you disclose it.

Disclosure just doesn’t seem to be in David Chipman’s wheelhouse and now it is coming back to bite him in the ass.

Andrew Kaczynski and Drew Myers cover politics for CNN. That network is not considered a bastion of support for the Second Amendment. Neither are they the “anonymous bloggers and social media sleuths” that Mrs. Chipman holds in such disregard. Indeed they are as mainstream media as mainstream media gets.

Thus, when they have a story that illustrates the failure of David Chipman to disclose talks he gave and events in which he participated, it is an issue.

From CNN:

In one undisclosed 2019 talk given to a law firm titled “Can the Right to Bear Arms Coexist with Gun Control?,” David Chipman said his views and politics weren’t typical of most at the ATF and in law enforcement because the groups were mostly “a very conservative bunch, primarily of white men.”

The comments are notable because Chipman’s nomination has struggled to gain support – even from some members of the Democratic caucus who have yet to commit to his nomination. Senators have questioned if his past record as an advocate for stricter gun laws would make him a less effective director.

And then there is this interview from a podcast in 2017:

In another undisclosed 2017 interview on Jared Huffman’s “Off the Cuff” podcast, Chipman said the NRA depends on an “un-American” business model that involves making society “less safe.”

“If (the NRA is) no longer selling a lot of guns to sportsmen and hunters and (their) primary business model is you need guns for public safety. Well, then you need an unsafe society to need to buy a gun,” Chipman said. “If your business model depends entirely on people feeling unsafe and scared and need to buy a gun, why would you want to do anything that makes things safer?”

Chipman added he needed to retire from the ATF after 25 years to talk about his views on gun violence “in a way” that would not end him up in jail for speaking to the press without authorization.

These are just two of the previously undisclosed talks and interviews involving Chipman. As the CNN story makes clear, there are more and they give links to them. A thorough search probably will find more.

We know that David Chipman hates us, our organizations, our rights, and our freedom. His nomination needs to be either withdrawn or defeated. I would prefer defeat because it puts the rest of the politicians who hate us on record.

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The Trace: Chipman Nomination Hanging By A Thread

August 11, 2021 by 3 Comments

When even the Bloomberg-funded The Trace says David Chipman’s nomination to head BATFE is in trouble, you know it is in trouble.

The article is an attempt to rally support for Chipman and to put pressure on Sen. Angus King (I-ME), an independent who caucuses with the Democrat. King has said privately he is a “no” on Chipman.

They are now saying Chipman’s confirmation was always “a long shot.”

The Trace is now trying to portray the Chipmans as victims of “anonymous bloggers and social media sleuths”.

Tara Chipman told USA TODAY that she retired to avoid the conflict of working under her husband’s leadership or staying on in the aftermath of a failed nomination.

She cited cases of online harassment, including conspiracy theories tied to her mother, Olivia Cajero-Bedford, a former Democratic state senator in Arizona who proposed a ban on the bump stock devices now banned nationwide.

“The negative attention was more than either of us expected, especially me as a spouse,” Tara Chipman said Wednesday. “I don’t know why anyone would want a Senate-confirmed position in government. 

“I feel kind of powerless because, of course, I want to go after these people, but I don’t want to do anything to endanger David’s nomination.”

It is hard for me to believe that anyone who had been in DC as long as Mrs. Chipman can portray herself as so naive. It is rather disingenuous to say the “negative attention was more than either of us expected.” She would have been piling on to a Republican nominee and his or her spouse if they were affiliated in any sort of way with the firearms industry.

State of Mainers need to keep the pressure on King just as those in Montana and West Virginia need to keep the pressure on Senators Tester and Manchin.

By the way, I am not an “anonymous blogger”. My real name is on every one of the posts I’ve made about David and Tara Chipman. It is not my fault that they have left such a large presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.