By Sarah N. Lynch and Brad Heath
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department plans to press ahead with a merger of its two agencies that investigate drug and firearms offenses, though the effort would still need approval from Congress, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
In a meeting on Thursday, officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were informed that the merger could be executed as soon as October, one of the sources said, speaking anonymously because the discussions are not public.
As part of that plan, the White House is expected to propose consolidating the budgets for both agencies when it releases its full fiscal year 2026 spending proposal, the four sources told Reuters.
Such a move would require congressional approval. Currently, the federal spending law in place explicitly states that no funds appropriated for the ATF can be transferred to other agencies or departments.
A spokesman for the Justice Department referred questions to the White House Office of Management and Budget. A spokesperson for OMB could not be immediately reached.
The proposal to merge the ATF and DEA first surfaced in March, when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche floated the idea in a memo that proposed a broader series of major structural changes at the Justice Department.
The proposal at the time caught officials in both law enforcement agencies by surprise.
Many aspects of the other re-organization proposals in Blanche’s memo, such as breaking up the department’s Tax Division and Consumer Protection Branch, have already received a green light and are proceeding, according to an internal email reviewed by Reuters that was sent out earlier this month to employees in the Criminal Division.
A merger of the ATF and DEA would represent one of the biggest shakeups of the Justice Department since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
It would also pose a challenging task for the Justice Department to seamlessly try to combine the DEA’s complex role of regulating pharmacies, doctors and drug manufactures, and the ATF’s responsibility for regulating the firearms industry.
Earlier this month, the White House released a scaled-back “skinny” version of its fiscal 2026 budget which proposed drastic spending cuts for the FBI, the DEA and the ATF.
Officials in the ATF and DEA have raised concerns that merging the budgets of the two agencies would still not cover the cost of their operating expenses, one of the sources said.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Brad Heath; Editing by Scott Malone and Edward Tobin)
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