Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' chief legal counsel Pamela Hicks, inset, on Thursday. (ATF/Getty Images)
A source familiar with the termination said Hicks was escorted out of the ATF building upon her termination.
"ATF respects the rights of all our employees," ATF told Fox News Digital when asked about Hicks' termination. "As a general policy, ATF does not comment on personnel matters, including but not limited to, specific personnel issues, actions, or the existence of ongoing investigations."
The firing comes after a handful of senior DOJ officials have quit or been fired in recent days. At least seven federal prosecutors quit in February over the Trump DOJ ordering the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams be dropped, while Trump on Tuesday ordered the DOJ to "clean house" of all Biden-era U.S. attorneys.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) headquarters is seen in Washington, D.C. (Rich Clement/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"What concerned me the most? It's the volume of how bad it was, and it still is," she said while speaking with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on a live episode of his podcast, "Verdict." "We're working on it. It's day by day by day, but we've got a team of great people. And on day one, I issued 14 executive orders. And number one is the weaponization ends. And it ends now. And that's what we did."
TRUMP ORDERS ALL BIDEN-ERA US ATTORNEYS TO BE FIRED: 'WE MUST CLEAN HOUSE IMMEDIATELY'
Bondi added that the state of the DOJ was "worse" than she expected.
"Worse meaning, that department had completely lost its mission of fighting violent crime," she said of the DOJ. "Look what they did to President Trump. Look at the weaponization."
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ATF was transferred from the Department of Treasury to the Department of Justice in 2003, following the Homeland Security Act mandating that the law enforcement agency join the DOJ amid the nation's reshuffling of the federal government to better combat terrorism following 9/11.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/atf-chief-legal-counsel-fired-bondi-latest-justice-department-shakeup