Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Blais has served as SAC since December 2023. Before this, he served as one of two Assistant Special Agents in Charge for the field division, arriving in Seattle in March 2017. The Seattle Field Division is the largest ATF field division by area, covering five states and three U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean.
In this position, he also serves as a permanent member of the ATF Professional Review Board, tasked with reviewing the findings of ATF’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations (OPRSO) and the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General’s internal investigations to determine matters of misconduct and integrity violations and propose warranted disciplinary action.
He joined ATF in 2002 and served as a Special Agent in the Roanoke, Virginia, Field Office, Washington Field Division, until May 2011. While in Roanoke in 2008, he assumed the duty of a digital investigator, collecting and examining computer and other electronics evidence, working with the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force’s Operation Blue Thunder, a federal undercover task force investigating sexual exploitation of children through the Internet.
In May 2011, Blais was assigned as Resident Agent in Charge of the Brownsville, Texas, Field Office, Houston Field Division, overseeing the creation of the office’s Southwest Border Firearms Trafficking Office.
He then took an assignment as a Special Agent with OPRSO’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD) in Falls Church, Virginia, between June 2014 and January 2016.
During his time with IAD, he was detailed as class coordinator for the Law Enforcement Leadership and Development Course at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Gaborone, Botswana, between January and February 2015. Between September and November 2015, he became the acting Assistant Special Agent in Charge of IAD, supervising a team of investigators responsible for conducting sensitive administrative and criminal investigations concerning actions involving the integrity of ATF employees.
Blais then assumed duties as Chief of the Force Review Branch in January 2016, serving as the expert authority on issues regarding use of force by ATF Special Agents until March 2017, when he moved to Washington State to serve as Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Seattle Field Division.
Before joining ATF, Blais served in Naval Intelligence from 1994 to 1996 and as a Police Officer and Detective with the Leesburg, Virginia, Police Department from 1996 to 2002.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Appalachian State University.