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Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance speaks at a rally with former President Donald Trump in Delaware, Ohio, on April 23, 2022. (AP) Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance speaks at a rally with former President Donald Trump in Delaware, Ohio, on April 23, 2022. (AP)

Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance speaks at a rally with former President Donald Trump in Delaware, Ohio, on April 23, 2022. (AP)

Tom Kertscher
By Tom Kertscher June 30, 2022

Ohio’s JD Vance wants to defund a federal law enforcement agency, but not all police departments

If Your Time is short

  • Vance wants to defund the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a law enforcement agency.

  • In January, Vance retweeted a tweet that said the FBI "needs to be defunded and eliminated," but has not issued statements directly calling for the FBI to be defunded. 

  • Broadly, Vance has not said he wants to defund all police departments.

In the Ohio Senate race, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan portrays himself as a candidate that supports the police and his  Republican opponent J.D. Vance as someone who does not. 

A Ryan TV ad features uniformed Stark County Sheriff George T. Maier standing in front of a squad car. Maier says that when Vance "calls law enforcement corrupt, it makes me angry, that makes my job harder. So does J.D.’s plan to eliminate an agency that combats violent drug traffickers."

Then a message on the screen makes this claim: "J.D. Vance wants to defund law enforcement." 

No particular agency is identified, but the ad cites a Vance tweet from Feb. 1. In that tweet, Vance wrote that he would "fight to abolish the ATF." That’s a reference to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a law enforcement agency within the Justice Department.

In the ad, Maier then makes this comparison:

"Tim Ryan knows defunding the police is ridiculous," Maier says.  "He’s brought back $467 million to put good cops on the street."

Ryan has served in Congress for nearly 20 years.

Vance, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, wants to get rid of one law enforcement agency, ATF, but he has not campaigned against defunding all law enforcement agencies.

The Senate seat is opening because Republican Rob Portman is not seeking reelection. The Nov. 8 race is rated as "leans" Republican, "likely" Republican and "solid" Republican. The outcome could decide party control of the Senate, which is now split 50-50.

Vance’s calls to abolish ATF

The mission of the ATF is "to protect communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations and illegal use and trafficking of firearms," among other things, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Vance, an author and venture capitalist, has called several times for getting rid of the agency, including in a February opinion article published by the Cincinnati Enquirer, in tweets and in a campaign ad

His Feb. 2 tweet included a video clip of himself at a campaign event alleging that the ATF is "spying on lawful gun owners" by keeping a database of gun transactions.

Vance falsely claimed in a February ad that President Joe Biden "uses the ATF to illegally track your gun transactions." The Government Accountability Office found that ATF is following the law in how it manages gun transaction records.

A joint fundraising committee that raises contributions for Vance’s campaign and for his leadership PAC also ran an ad on Facebook and Instagram calling for the ATF to be abolished.

Vance’s criticism of the FBI

Vance has been critical of the FBI, calling for an investigation of its "corrupt leadership," accusing it of botching investigations and of spying on Trump. 

We found that in January, Vance retweeted a tweet that said: "The FBI is an irreparably corrupt and broken agency that needs to be defunded and eliminated." 

We searched Google and Vance’s Twitter feed for any other statements by Vance directly calling for abolishing or defunding the FBI, but did not find any. 

Vance does not list law enforcement or crime generally on the issues section of his campaign website. His campaign did not provide comment for this article.

Calls to "defund the police" emerged soon after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd, a Black man, in May 2020 by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. Some of those proposals seek to eliminate police departments, others want to keep police departments while rerouting some of their funds and responsibilities to other agencies.

We found no record of Vance supporting proposals to defund police departments.

Our ruling

Ryan said Vance "wants to defund law enforcement."

Vance wants to defund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement agency. In January, he retweeted a tweet that said the FBI "needs to be defunded and eliminated." 

Broadly, Vance has not said he wants to defund all law enforcement agencies.

We rate Ryan’s claim Half True.

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

RELATED: Fact-checking ads in the 2022 campaigns

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Our Sources

YouTube, Tim Ryan "Corrupt" ad, June 15, 2022

Tim Ryan campaign, "Tim Ryan releases two new TV ads," June 15, 2022

Email, Tim Ryan campaign spokesperson Izzi Levy, June 23, 2022

Email, J.D. Vance campaign spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk, June 27, 2022

Cincinnati Enquirer, "Opinion: ATF's database is a backdoor way of disarming citizens," Feb. 18, 2022

Twitter, J.D. Vance tweet, Feb. 1, 2022

Twitter, J.D. Vance retweet, archived here, Jan. 15, 2022

Twitter, J.D. Vance tweet, April 11, 2022

Twitter, J.D. Vance for U.S. Senate Press tweet, April 14, 2022

Twitter, Sean Davis tweet, archived here, Jan. 15, 2022

Twitter, Jim Swift tweet, archived here, June 15, 2022

Advanced Twitter Search, @jdvance1, June 28, 2022

Twitter, The Columbia Bugle tweet of J.D. Vance speech (2:20; 7:00), April 23, 2022

Real Clear Politics, "J.D. Vance: Why Hasn't A Single Person Who Spied On Trump Gone To Prison?", April 23, 2022

The Chronicle (Elyria, Ohio), "U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance campaigns in Avon," Feb. 2, 2022 

Meta, Ohioans for JD ad, March 17 to April 8, 2022

Federal Election Commission, Ohioans for JD statement of organization, July 1, 2021

The Hill, "Tim Ryan hits JD Vance in new ad for proposal to abolish ATF," June 16, 2022

Fox News, "JD Vance argues to get rid of the ATF, says a gun registry is 'disarming' citizens," Feb. 4, 2022

JDVance.com, "Issues," accessed June 28, 2022

Email, Anna Massoglia, Open Secrets editorial and investigations manager, June 28, 2022

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Ohio’s JD Vance wants to defund a federal law enforcement agency, but not all police departments

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