The original deadline for Attorney General Pam Bondi to complete her investigation into any ATF and DOJ policies and practices that violate our Second Amendment rights quietly passed more than a week ago without any word from the AG or her staff about her conclusions, but we may hear something this week about what she's discovered. 

According to ABC News, Bondi's deadline had been extended to Sunday, March 16, so barring any other extensions the Attorney General should now have her recommendations in hand and ready to discuss with Trump's domestic policy advisor. 

In his executive order, Trump instructed Bondi that in addition to reviewing all presidential actions taken on gun control from January 2021 to January 2025, he wanted her to review rules about firearms and federal firearm licensing implemented by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Trump specifically asked Bondi to review the ATF's "enhanced regulatory enforcement policy" -- also called the "zero tolerance policy" -- implemented in 2021 under Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland to identify federal firearms dealers who violate the 1968 Gun Control Act.

 Under the policy, firearms dealers had their licenses revoked for willfully transferring firearms to prohibited people, failing to conduct the required background checks, falsifying records and failing to respond to a gun trace request. The policy prompted several lawsuits from gun dealers who argued their licenses were revoked over minor clerical errors.

These aren't minor concerns for FFLs or gun owners, and it's troubling that Bondi was apparently unable to meet the original deadline for her review. Of course, this is only one issue that the Attorney General has on her plate, and Trump is keeping her and other DOJ attorneys busy with some of his other declarations, including Sunday night's assertion that all of Joe Biden's pardons are null and void. As my colleague and friend Ed Morrissey wrote at HotAir, the president's declaration is going to face a tough road in the courts, and is likely to send many DOJ staffers scrambling to come up with a rationale and justification for his argument. 

To overturn these pardons on the basis of a Biden incompetency, one would have to prove in each instance that Biden didn't himself intend and desire to issue those clemencies. Courts would put a high burden of proof on the Trump Department of Justice to prove that on each pardon that recipients defend, and the autopen and a tape of the June 27 debate won't suffice. The lack of cognitive intent would have to be established in each separate case where challenges to revocation arise, and the DoJ would likely have to prove it by something more than a preponderance of evidence standard to get a federal judge to go along.

That's especially true with the stinkiest of the pardons -- those that went to Biden's own family. Are they going to argue that Biden didn't intend to protect his own Biden Inc family members? Yes, Biden claimed that he wouldn't pardon Hunter, but Biden lied. Everyone knows that Biden lied about that, as well as most of everything else Biden ever discussed about himself. Your great-aunt Gertrude, dead lo these many years and now voting in Chicago elections, knows Biden lied and that he intended to pardon Hunter and every other Biden all along. 

Basically, all this does is set up a bunch of lawyers to make a lot of money in a process that Trump won't win. And for what? Some old cases that the DoJ probably wouldn't pursue anyway at this point. It has the danger of setting precedents that could harm the people Trump has pardoned in his first term and in the past two months. We're far better off sticking to autopen memes and pursuing a reform of the pardon process that allows for more review before pardons get issued in the first place. 

I'd much rather Bondi and the DOJ spend their time and energy going after the rules, regulations, and policies that are impacting millions of gun owners, FFLs, and the firearms industry, but hopefully the AG can engage in the legal equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time. If not, we may very well be looking at another delay in implementing Trump's 2A executive order, and that's bad news for everyone but the gun control lobby.