Marianna Mitchem, ATF’s former Associate Assistant Director of Field Operations (Industry Operations), is now working for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Everytown for Gun Safety, according to a former ATF senior official who didn’t want their name used in this story.
Mitchem has turned on ATF since joining Everytown, the former official said. She is reaching out to her former colleagues, trying to target GLOCK and GLOCK-type handguns.
Mitchem began her 20-year ATF career in 2005 as an IOI, an industry operations investigator. Those are the agents who inspect gun shops to make sure their records and inventory are documented correctly. She worked unarmed and was never an ATF Special Agent, the ones who are armed and charged with enforcing federal law.
Mitchem was promoted to field supervisor in 2011, and by 2014, was put in charge of industry operations for ATF’s Phoenix field division. She moved to Washington, D.C. in 2017, when she became ATF’s deputy chief of Field Management Staff. One year later, she was promoted to Chief.
In 2019, Mitchem became Dettelbach’s deputy chief of staff. One year later, she was promoted to Chief of the Firearms and Explosives Industry Division.
Mitchem held her final position as Associate Assistant Director of Field Operations (Industry Operations), from March 2024 until she left in May 2025.
Anti-gun history
The former ATF senior official we talked to who worked with Mitchem said she was smart, a good communicator but very anti-gun.
Things changed for Mitchem when former President Joe Biden appointed Steve Dettelbach to run ATF, the former official said. Mitchem was given more duties and responsibilities. The former official described her as “Dettelbach’s puppet.” She was his “superstar,” and was responsible for ATF’s frame or receiver rule and for going after “ghost guns.”
The actions Mitchem took regarding these un-serialized firearms were wrong, the former ATF official said. The agency included pre-1968 firearms on its ghost gun list, even though firearms manufactured prior to 1968 were not required to have serial numbers. Homemade firearms, which don’t require serial numbers in free states, were also added to the list.
In addition, if law enforcement officers couldn’t find a serial number, the firearm was still added to the “ghost gun” list, because the ATF never checked or verified any of the firearms added to the list. This caused ATF and other agencies to question the validity of its own database, which Mitchem was responsible for creating. However, the Biden Administration eagerly used the list to promote its anti-gun efforts.
Takeaways
Attempts to contact Mitchem weren’t successful. Her cell phone has been disconnected and changed. Voice messages, emails and texts left with Everytown were not returned.
The former senior official who spoke out against Mitchem said now that she’s gone, there’s only one anti-gun senior official left at the ATF.
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.
I’m not surprised.
With all those promotions the knees would really take a beating.
M-18 returns to service, VICTORY For SIG: Air Force Clears Controversial Sidearm After Finding Issues [and returns pistol to service].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaGdsB4Xw1o
Obviously, the dems did not get the memo: Migrant crime and carjackings ‘don’t matter to that many Americans,’ left-wing think tank VP tells Democrats .
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A speaker at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) summer meeting on Monday urged Democrats not to copy President Trump’s tough-on-crime approach – arguing that migrant crime, carjackings and other public safety threats ‘don’t matter to that many Americans.’
…”
[note: then this mental illness delusion TDS infected person, the VP of the George Soros-funded think tank ‘The Vera Institute’, used already known to be false information to back up her talking points urging dems to continue to do what caused the crime crisis in the first place and then told them ‘Don’t be afraid of the crime debate. Lean all the way in. Call out what Trump is doing and say the reason crime is going down, our community becoming safer, it’s because of us,” when the actual facts and figures show otherwise.]
https://nypost.com/2025/08/25/us-news/migrant-crime-and-carjackings-dont-matter-to-that-many-americans-left-wing-think-tank-vp-tells-democrats/