The Senate today confirmed former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Steve Dettelbach to serve as the next director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, giving the agency its first confirmed director since 2015.
The 48-46 vote included two Republicans voting in favor of Dettelbach: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Rob Portman (Ohio).
Dettelbach served as co-leader of BakerHostetler’s White Collar, Investigations and Securities Enforcement and Litigation team. He returned to the firm in 2016 after spending almost seven years as the presidentially appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
In his 30-year career, Dettelbach has been involved in nearly every type of criminal, civil or regulatory investigation. He has served in senior policy roles at the Department of Justice, having been appointed by two Attorneys General to the prestigious Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC), where he worked closely with other senior leaders at the department. He also was appointed to Chair the AGAC Civil Rights Subcommittee by both Attorneys General Holder and Lynch, and was the longest serving Chair in the Obama Administration.
Prior to his appointment, Dettelbach served for almost two decades as a federal prosecutor at Main Justice in the Civil Rights Division and in United States Attorneys’ Offices, as counsel in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and as the Democratic nominee for Ohio Attorney General in 2018.
Dettelbach’s endorsements include former Trump deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Bush’s former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division Kenneth Wainstein.
“As ATF Director, Steve will play a leading role in ensuring robust implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and driving forward other executive actions to fight crime and save lives,” President Biden said in a statement.