House Republicans proposed another round of funding cuts to the Justice Department this week, despite warnings from agency officials that past cutbacks are hampering their law enforcement and public safety work.
House appropriators rolled out a draft fiscal 2025 Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill that would slash funds for the DOJ and several of its entities that got reductions in the previous fiscal year, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, whose agency got a $47 million cut to its salary and expenses account in the current fiscal year, has said that he had to cancel three new special agent classes, which he said would have equated to about 10 to 12 fully staffed squads of agents.
