Shane Harris, The Atlantic (“FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge“):
[Friday] afternoon, FBI personnel braced for a retaliatory purge of the nation’s premiere law-enforcement agency, as President Donald Trump appeared ready to fire potentially hundreds of agents and officials who’d participated in investigations that led to criminal charges against him.
A team that investigated Trump’s mishandling of classified documents was expected to be fired, four people familiar with the matter said. Trump has long fumed about that investigation, which involved a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate that turned up hundreds of classified documents he had taken after he left the White House four years ago.
David Sundberg, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, is also being fired, these people added. Sundberg is a career FBI agent with more than two decades of experience, and he oversees some of the bureau’s most sensitive cases related to national security and counterintelligence. Current and former officials told me they are worried that those investigations could stall, at least temporarily, if a large number of agents are suddenly removed. A spokesperson at the Washington Field Office declined to comment.
Trump’s retribution is not limited to those who investigated him personally. Administration officials are reviewing records to identify FBI personnel who participated in investigations of the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters, people familiar with the matter told me. That could potentially involve hundreds if not thousands of agents, including those who interviewed and investigated rioters who were later prosecuted. Shortly after taking office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of the rioters and commuted others’ sentences.
There is no precedent for the mass termination of FBI personnel in this fashion. Current and former officials I spoke with had expected Trump to exact retribution for what he sees as unjust and even illegal efforts by the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate his conduct. But they were stunned by the scale of Trump’s anticipated purge, which is taking aim at senior leaders as well as working-level agents who do not set policy but follow the orders of their superiors.
This afternoon, some FBI personnel frantically traded messages and rumors about others believed to be on Trump’s list, including special agents who run field offices across the country and were also involved in investigations of the former president.
Trump’s efforts to root out his supposed enemies might not withstand a legal challenge. FBI agents do not choose the cases assigned to them, and they are protected by civil-service rules. The FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit organization that is not part of the U.S. government, said in a statement that the reports of Trump’s planned purge are “outrageous” and “fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents.”
The mass firings could imperil the nomination of Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to run the FBI in his administration. Just yesterday, Patel had assured senators during his confirmation hearing that the very kinds of politically motivated firings that appear to be in motion would not happen.
“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel told lawmakers. “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 to run the Justice Department, had likewise assured senators during her own hearing that government personnel would not be subject to political retaliation for doing their job.
Evan Perez, Josh Campbell, and Hannah Rabinowitz for CNN (“Trump DOJ demands list of thousands of FBI agents, others who worked on Jan. 6 and Trump investigations for possible firing“) add:
The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, demanding the names of those who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations for potential removal – a move that could affect thousands.
Leaders of the FBI were instructed Friday to provide the Justice Department by Tuesday information about all current and former bureau employees who “at any time” worked on January 6 investigations, according to an email from acting FBI director Brian Driscoll and obtained by CNN.
The Justice Department, according to the email, will review those employees to “determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
“This request,” Driscoll wrote to all bureau personnel, “encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts.” The acting director noted in the email that such a list would also include him, as well as the acting deputy director.
The requested list, which interim DOJ leaders had spent the past week drawing up, highlights how the new administration has moved quickly to deliver on President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back at the Justice Department and FBI that he claims have been weaponized against him. Trump has falsely accused agents of abuse in their court-ordered search of his Mar-a-Lago home and of their treatment of Capitol rioters.
The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
Driscoll attached to the email a memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove with the subject line “Termination.”
“For each employee included in the lists, provide the current title, office to which the person is assigned, role in the investigation or prosecution, and date of last activity relating to the investigation or prosecution,” Bove wrote. “Upon timely receipt of the requested information, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General will commence a review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
The Bove memo also referenced the removal of senior FBI officials, which CNN previously reported.
“The FBI — including the Bureau’s prior leadership — actively participated in what President Trump appropriately described as ‘a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated on the American people over the last four years’ with respect to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Bove said.
The Justice Department also requested information on FBI personnel who worked on a criminal case brought in September by the previous administration against several high-level members of Hamas over the October 7, 2023, attack.
Driscoll said in his email that “we are going to follow the law, follow FBI policy, and do what’s in the best interest of the workforce and the American people.”
Friday’s notices of expected termination sent shockwaves throughout the FBI, line-level agents and analysts told CNN.
“This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor,” said one agent. “Even for those not fired, it sends the message that the bureau is no longer independent.”
One employee noted the January 6 case, which involved over a thousand defendants located across the country, was the largest investigation ever worked by the FBI.
“Everyone touched this case,” the employee said.
Even if one thinks that the Biden administration’s investigation of the Capitol riots was politically motivated, firing hundreds, perhaps thousands of federal agents for doing their jobs is, to say the least, problematic. It will almost certainly not survive judicial scrutiny.
Presumably, the plan is to either shutter the FBI completely or fill it with agents loyal to this President. Even aside from the longstanding notion that enforcement of the law should be apolitical—federal agents, like all federal employees, take an oath to the Constitution, not a President or a political party—this would essentially halt any ongoing investigation, period, given the reach of the intended purge. This would include the Bureau’s extensive counterterrorism mission.
