Trump administration nominee Robert Cekada is one step closer to leading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 14-8 to advance his nomination Thursday.
A full Senate confirmation could signal a more consistent future for an agency that often finds itself with a rotating cast of agency leads instead of a permanent director. The acting director role is currently held by Daniel Driscoll, who is also serving as secretary of the Army. The position was previously temporarily occupied by FBI Director Kash Patel.
Cekada, meanwhile, has been viewed as a more traditional pick to helm the ATF, as an agency veteran with a decades-long career in law enforcement that began as a police cadet with the New York City Police Department in the early 1990s.
