White House seeks budget cuts for Justice Department law enforcement offices, sources say

By Sarah N. Lynch

The White House is poised to ask Congress to cut funding for several of the Justice Department's law enforcement offices under a budget proposal that would likely hamper its ability to carry out the Trump administration's pledge to crack down on violent crime, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The fiscal-year 2026 budget proposal calls for cutting the budgets for the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI, said the sources, who spoke anonymously because the budget had not been made public.

The White House proposal calls for a roughly $1.2 billion budget for ATF in fiscal 2026, which would be down from its current funding level of about $1.625 billion, two of the sources said. If enacted, that would be the agency's lowest budget since at least 2016, one added.

The DEA, meanwhile, would see its current budget of $2.6 billion cut to $2.5 billion, while the FBI would have its $10.6 billion budget cut to $10.1 billion if the White House proposal is enacted by Congress, the two sources added.

The Justice Department has been mulling whether to merge the ATF with the DEA, a proposal opposed by many gun-rights and gun-control groups as well as by agents at both agencies.

Derek Maltz - who has been overseeing the DEA until the Senate can confirm Terry Cole, Trump's pick for its administrator - is stepping down on Friday, two other people familiar with his plans said.

The proposed cuts to the DEA, ATF and FBI follow an executive order late last month that President Donald Trump said was designed to support law enforcement. It directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to take steps that would allow states, counties and cities to "unleash high-impact local police forces."

A Justice Department spokesman said the DOJ would "ensure our resources are effectively allocated to make America safe again."

Representatives of the White House, DEA, ATF and FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement that the proposed budget numbers being reported by Reuters are "false," without elaborating.

The FBI, DEA and ATF all frequently work with local law enforcement to investigate crimes and analyze complex evidence. The ATF, most notably, played a crucial role in quickly helping to trace the gun used by the suspect who tried to assassinate Trump - who was then the Republican presidential candidate - in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year.

The Justice Department, in coordination with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, moved in April to terminate more than 300 criminal justice grants valued at $811 million. Many of them provided funding for police, local prosecutors, court-appointed child advocates and victims services.

The White House's proposed cuts to the ATF - which frequently finds itself under fire by pro-gun rights groups because of its role in regulating the firearms industry - would be particularly damaging, the sources said.

If enacted, the cuts would force the agency to slash hundreds or more jobs, two of the sources said, in addition to the nearly 600 people who have already accepted the government's deferred resignation option.

The agency employs about 5,300, about half of whom are special agents, according to public records. It has been unable to fill about 150 slots for special agents due to budget cuts in 2024, forcing it to cancel its incoming agent classes, two of the sources said.

Such a decrease would limit the ATF's ability to assist federal, state and local law enforcement from analyzing key ballistic evidence that is often vital to solving homicides and other gun-related crimes.

It would also hamper its ability to help investigate cases involving bombs and arson, a niche area of expertise that many local law enforcement agencies lack, and it would impede it from conducting DNA analysis on shell casings to help solve crimes.

The DEA's budget proposal will not support funding for body-worn cameras, the sources said. The DEA quietly ended its body-worn camera program in late March, according to a previously unreported memo seen by Reuters. That memo reversed a policy under former Attorney General Merrick Garland that required all federal agents to wear them.

The DEA also just recently lost about 200 employees who took the second wave of deferred resignation offers, another source told Reuters.