Trump pledges FBI reform, but big purge of agents could backfire
Since his first term in office, President Donald Trump has viewed federal law enforcement as being weaponized against him. Now, his second administration may be looking to respond in kind.
The past week has seen confusion and anxiety spread through two agencies that have drawn President Trump’s ire. Senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were forced out or reassigned in recent days, according to news reports. That high-level reshuffling could soon develop into a broader purge of FBI personnel, the reports say, targeting agents involved in the investigation of Trump supporters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Precise details of how the United States’ leading law enforcement agencies could be reworked are still unclear. But reports of possible widespread FBI firings have come after senior Justice Department officials were removed or reassigned last month. On Tuesday, FBI leaders provided Trump administration officials with details of 5,000 employees who worked on Jan. 6 investigations. Earlier that day, two groups of anonymous FBI agents sued to block the Justice Department from publicly releasing that information.
Why We Wrote This
Possible widespread firings of FBI agents, seen by some as a way to reform the agency, are also raising concerns about its ability to keep the public safe and to be politically independent.
The turmoil follows years of claims from Mr. Trump and his supporters that they have been targeted because of their political beliefs.
The FBI has undergone significant reorganization before, but experts say the volume of firings the Trump administration is now considering would be unprecedented for the agency.
Legal experts and former FBI agents – even those critical of the agency’s actions in recent years – are expressing concerns. Widespread firings may cause more problems than they solve, they say, not only eroding the agency’s independence from politics but also disrupting its ability to keep the public safe.
“I voted for President Trump all three times. But whatever’s going on now is not what should be occurring,” says Thomas Raftery, a former FBI agent. “If they were to fire the number [of agents] that I saw [in the news], that would set the FBI back years.”
Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI had permanent leaders in place as of Tuesday. The U.S. Senate has yet to vote on Mr. Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump surrogate. Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, has just been confirmed as of Tuesday night to be U.S. attorney general.
Both Mr. Patel and Ms. Bondi have previously stated that the justice system has unfairly targeted Mr. Trump. Now, their potential future subordinates could face similar loyalty tests.
Removals and inquests
Exactly how many FBI agents have been fired so far is unclear, but dismissals reportedly began late last week.
On Friday – about 24 hours after Mr. Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “All FBI employees will be protected from political retribution” – the Trump administration began efforts to remove and investigate agency employees with ties to probes of the president and his supporters.
That day, Emil Bove – the acting deputy attorney general and Mr. Trump’s former personal defense lawyer – ordered Brian Driscoll, the acting FBI director, to remove eight of the agency’s senior career officials, NBC News reported. Mr. Bove also asked for a list of all current and former FBI employees who “at any time” worked on Jan. 6 cases, The Washington Times reported, “to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
That list was due at noon EST on Tuesday, CNN reported. It comes a week after more than a dozen Justice Department officials connected to criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump were fired, reportedly because they could not be trusted to implement his agenda “faithfully.”
The FBI declined to comment for this story, saying the agency couldn’t discuss personnel matters. According to news reports, at least six senior career officials have been fired or asked to resign, including agents in charge of field offices in Miami and Washington.
Those cities are at the heart of two investigations into Mr. Trump: one involving his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents and another into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Mr. Driscoll and other senior officials have pushed back on the Trump administration’s requests. The list due on Tuesday “encompasses thousands of employees around the country,” Mr. Driscoll said in response, according to The Washington Times.
Over the weekend, some agency employees received a 12-question survey inquiring about their work on the Jan. 6 investigation, ABC News reported. Such blanket requests appear politically motivated, and they unfairly target lower-level FBI employees, former agents said. Employees are being asked to include their job title; when, and if, they worked on a Jan. 6 case; and “whether they were involved in the arrest of a Jan. 6 suspect, testified at a trial, interviewed witnesses, conducted surveillance on suspects and more,” according to a Washington Post report.
Firing agency personnel because of their involvement in Jan. 6 cases could be unlawful, legal experts say.
“Certainly, at the line level, you don’t really get a choice what you’re working on,” says Javed Ali, who worked at the FBI for 11 years and is now a professor of public policy. “Are you going to remove those folks if they worked on those cases, even if they weren’t doing it for any partisan or ideological reason?”
Necessary reform? Or a “purge”?
While the past few days may have brought confusion and intimidation for FBI employees, it doesn’t appear to have brought a widespread purge – yet.
The agency has been reformed before, in response to both political controversy and new criminal activity. And for an institution that has lost public confidence in recent years – at least among Republicans – reform now is warranted, some retired agents say. Jim Wedick, a former FBI supervisory special agent, references a raid on Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of the classified documents investigation and the large numbers of migrants crossing the southern border illegally as agency failures.
“Something should be done about the violations that have taken place in the last 10 years,” he adds. “Whether it should be this purge that they seem to be talking about, I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about things.”
Safety first
The potentially broad, and seemingly politically motivated removals could further damage the FBI’s reputation, former agents say. More importantly, they could hinder the agency’s ability to keep Americans safe.
The prospect of widespread firings at the country’s leading domestic law enforcement agency comes at a time when the country faces more threats than ever, experts say.
“With all of these personnel actions and structural issues [going on], is this impacting the current mission?” asks Professor Ali, who teaches at the University of Michigan.
The last big agency revamp came after 9/11, when then-Director Robert Mueller reorganized the FBI to prioritize fighting terrorism. Agency leadership is free to focus on new priorities, experts say, but an increased focus in one area likely means a decreased focus in others.
“There are tradeoffs and risks,” says Professor Ali. “If there are major changes to the FBI, we’d like to think the administration is thinking about the implications for national security.”
A potential FBI purge, if seemingly motivated by political retribution, also endangers the agency’s efforts to maintain a culture of political independence.
From J. Edgar Hoover to Watergate, the agency had a history of corruption and political influence. But the past half-century has been different, says Douglas Charles, a professor at Penn State University who studies FBI history. Recent pushback from officials like Mr. Driscoll is evidence of that new culture – and the pressure it’s feeling – he adds.
It’s “a 50-year culture of independence,” he continues. “That’s 1739350091 under threat.”
Caitlin Babcock reported from Washington, and Henry Gass from Austin, Texas.
