WASHINGTON — President Obama is a busy guy with a lot of worries. So he might be excused when he commits a little Washington faux pas as he did during a town hall meeting last week with young people.
While discussing “federal drug enforcement”, he mentioned the Justice Department and FBI, but not the DEA,the lead agency in the war on drugs.
“We have to figure out who is it we’re going after because we’ve got limited resources,” he said. “So decisions that are made by the Justice Department or FBI about prosecuting drug kingpins versus somebody with some small amount, those decisions are made based on how can we best enforce the laws that are on the books.”
In many ways, it was not big deal. But the comment rubbed some folks at DEA the wrong way. Plus, agents felt it was reflective of the administration’s overall attitude toward the DEA.
“I don’t think he’s given any thought to the DEA,” one agent told me. “We’ve become an afterthought, the stepchild when it comes to the FBI and Justice Department.”
So frankly, you can’t be totally dismissive of those sentiments.
For one, Michele Leonhart, the acting head of the agency, was nominated by the president in February, but has yet to be confirmed. To boot, she’s been acting head of the agency since 2007. The absence of a confirmation is unsettling for some in the agency.
With Mexico raging out of control, and the cartels tentacles reaching far into the U.S., the DEA may not be the agency the administration wants to short change — and that also means when it comes to giving a shoutout publicly about federal drug law enforcement.
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