A watchdog group has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in an effort to learn more about an alleged incident involving Democrat President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
David Chipman, a radical pro-gun control activist and former ATF agent, allegedly made racist remarks about blacks who had passed a test to become ATF agents. Chipman claimed during a Senate hearing earlier this year that complaints had been made against him but that they were “resolved without any finding of discrimination and no disciplinary action was taken against me.”
The Daily Caller reported:
Tom Jones, the president of the American Accountability Foundation, said he filed two FOIA requests with the ATF in May requesting records related to any complaints and disciplinary measures taken against Chipman during his 25-year tenure with the agency. The AAF’s lawsuit said the ATF failed to produce the records in the time frame allotted by the law, despite Chipman’s acknowledgment in his written statement to Cruz that the federal government has control of his personnel file.
The alleged incident in question happened in 2007 when Chipman, who was the assistant special agent in charge of the Detroit Field Division at the time, said that a large number of blacks had passed the test because “they must have been cheating,” Jones said in reference to what a former ATF agent told him. The agent reported the incident to the EEOC.
Another former ATF agent, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, told the Daily Caller that while they did not personally hear Chipman make the comment, that it “spread like wildfire at the agency.”
The agent told The Daily Caller that agents talked about how Chipman “made this remark that all the African Americans must be cheating because there’s no way they could get these scores.”
“He made this remark in front of a bunch of witnesses,” the former ATF agent said. “It spread like wildfire at the agency. It got tremendous blowback, as it should. Here you have a middle manager saying something like that with absolutely no proof.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a moderate who often bucks her own party, announced this week that she will oppose Chipman because of how “divisive” he is.
“After meeting with Mr. Chipman, listening to Mainers, and reviewing his record, I have decided to vote against Mr. Chipman’s nomination to serve as the ATF Director,” Collins said. “In recent years, Mr. Chipman has been an outspoken critic of the firearms industry and has made statements that demean law-abiding gun owners.”
“Although he has the right to express his views, I believe this history makes him an unusually divisive pick for this important position,” she continued. “In particular, I am concerned that his confirmation would do significant damage to the collaborative working relationship that must exist between ATF, the firearms industry, sportsmen and women, and other law-abiding gun owners exercising their Second Amendment rights.”