FBI considering mass purge of agents involved in Trump investigations
“The Trump administration is considering a mass purge of FBI agents involved in investigations targeting the former president and his supporters. The plan, which could involve hundreds of agents, has raised concerns about potential legal risks and the impact on ongoing cases. While Trump denied ordering the firings, he expressed support for the idea, contradicting assurances from his nominees to protect FBI employees from political retribution.
Leaders appointed by the Trump administration are identifying potentially hundreds of FBI agents for possible termination, said people familiar with the plan.
President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a sweeping effort to potentially fire a large number of FBI agents across the country who worked on investigations targeting the president and his supporters, three people familiar with the plan said Friday.
It was not clear how many agents could be affected, but officials are working to identify potentially hundreds for possible termination, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private personnel plans.
Of specific interest in their review were agents who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents, the people said. One person said agents involved in building cases against rioters in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol also were being considered for termination.
A former law enforcement official familiar with the situation said FBI employees at the bureau’s downtown Washington headquarters have been asked to turn over internal files of the election-interference and Mar-a-Lago documents investigations. The Trump administration is reviewing those files for the names of FBI case agents and supervisors who were involved, to make lists of personnel they plan to fire, this person said.
The FBI’s acting director, Brian Driscoll, a veteran agent who Trump appointed to run the bureau until a permanent director is confirmed, refused to endorse the effort, two people familiar with the matter said. The effort appears to be orchestrated through the Justice Department and the Trump administration, though the specifics were not clear.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.
Asked Friday in the Oval Office whether he had ordered the firings of FBI agents, Trump said: “No, but we have some very bad people there… I wasn’t involved in that. But if they want to fire some people, it is fine with me.”
A purge of scores of agents from field offices across the country could significantly deplete the bureau’s staffing levels, affect ongoing cases unrelated to Trump or Jan. 6 and create a vacuum difficult to quickly fill. New agents must undergo intensive screening and a specialized 18-week training program before they can be deployed in the field.
While FBI agents can be terminated for cause, there is typically an extensive disciplinary process before any such decision.
Mark Zaid, a veteran attorney specializing in federal employment law, said FBI employees are entitled to receive a proposed punishment or discipline action in writing, and also a written justification outlining the security rules or standards of employee conduct they are accused of violating. The employee would then be entitled to two stages to appeal the recommended firing or other punishment.
Zaid said any mass dismissal of agents would be legally risky for the Trump administration, which has already fired prosecutors involved in the Trump cases and told multiple senior leaders at the FBI to retire or resign by Monday or face firing.
“What this administration is doing is they are acting so recklessly and with disregard to any laws or norms, they are making a ton of errors in order to satisfy their outspoken base that seek retribution,” Zaid said. “And they are creating a lot of legal claims.”
The ranks of those told this week to leave the FBI or be fired included several executive assistant directors as well as special agents in charge of some of the bureau’s field offices across the country. It is highly unusual for senior staffing changes to be made while there is interim leadership in place at the FBI, a law enforcement agency that is supposed to be insulated from politics.
But a mass purge of field agents, the front line investigators in FBI cases, would signal an even greater escalation of what has become a startling pattern of retaliation — and would contradict recent pledges to avoid such action by Trump’s nominees to lead both the FBI and the Department of Justice.
The agents assigned to the Trump election interference investigation did not volunteer to be put on the case, but were assigned by top FBI officials, according to a personal familiar with the investigation who asked to remain anonymous to discuss a sensitive matter. The person familiar said this assignment process was intended to ensure the investigative team was not politically biased.
During his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, vowed not to take action against bureau employees simply because they’d worked on investigations tied to the president.
“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel told lawmakers, adding later: “Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for case assignments.”
Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, gave similar assurances regarding Justice Department employees during her hearing earlier this month.
Last week, however, the Justice Department’s interim leadership fired more than a dozen officials and prosecutors who had worked on Smith’s cases. And The Washington Post reported Friday that interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin has dismissed roughly 30 federal prosecutors who worked on cases against participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol over the past four years.
The FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents personal FBI personnel, said the plan for firings, if true, would be “fundamentally at odds” with Trump’s law enforcement objectives.
The group said it had received assurances from Patel that agents would not face retribution based on the cases to which they were assigned.
“Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the Bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the Bureau and its new leadership for failure,” the association said in a statement.
Bureau employees traded information throughout much of the day Friday and some sought legal advice, as news of the possible filings circulated.
One person who works at the FBI’s Washington Field Office relayed to a colleague that supervisors had told agents to prepare for the White House to publicly release the names of the agents who worked on the two Trump criminal cases on Monday, and that those agents would to be terminated that same day.
Managers were telling employees to take their personnel files with them over the weekend, another person who was contacted by someone who works for the FBI said.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Lisa Rein and Derek Hawkins contributed to this report“
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