A purge of experienced leaders is now underway at the FBI. Thousands of field agents are being threatened with dismissal. Here’s what we know so far, and why America is already less safe.
At least eight of the most senior officials in the FBI, and multiple field office chiefs, have been forced out, despite the fact that neither attorney general pick Pam Bondi, nor FBI director nominee Kash Patel have been confirmed. In fact, perhaps this action is already in full swing precisely to allow both nominees to feign ignorance during their Senate hearings. Bondi testified, “There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.” Patel claimed, “All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” The past few days suggest otherwise.
This purge, with the potential of more to come, is eroding the FBI’s mission to protect America.
These forced dismissals and retirements are being directed by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a former defense attorney for Trump. Bove demanded acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll to dismiss the eight top leaders and, significantly, to provide a list of all FBI personnel who worked on the Capitol insurrection investigations. Driscoll advised the top leaders to leave the bureau, but has reportedly drawn the line at providing the list of field agents. In an email to bureau employees last Friday, Driscoll wrote that he was among the agents who would be on such a list, which is supposed to be submitted to DOJ by Tuesday.
Driscoll’s all-employee message stated in part, “We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts.” He said that he and his deputy “are going to follow the law, follow F.B.I. policy and do what’s in the best interest of the work force and the American people — always.”
Driscoll isn’t the only FBI leader to resist the political retribution against FBI personnel who were simply doing their jobs when they were assigned to roughly 1,500 cases related to the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. James Dennehy, the leader of the New York field office (the FBI’s largest), told his team to “dig in” in response to the Trump administration’s targeting of agents, and he lauded Driscoll for defending the FBI’s autonomy:
Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy.”
This purge, with the potential of more to come, is eroding the FBI’s mission to protect America. Not only is it demoralizing the workforce that Patel would inherit, but interfering with the work that the FBI continually does tracking multiple terror threats and plots to attack the homeland. Peeling away respected, seasoned leaders and agents at FBI headquarters and in the field heightens risks that something will go horribly wrong. Each time a leader is removed, an acting manager is named to fill in. When this happens at multiple levels at many locations, you get less experienced and knowledgeable people trying to run operations where there is no room for error.
To make matters worse, even though President Trump’s federal hiring freeze claimed to exempt national security agencies, the FBI has unexplainably still implemented a hiring freeze. That means that if hundreds or even thousands of agents are dismissed from the rolls, there will be no one to replace them.
Some Democratic members of the House and Senate have weighed in with statements condemning the politically motived revenge purge. But statements aren’t enough. Members of Congress should demand that both Bondi and Patel return to Capitol Hill to explain what is happening and whether they lied during their nomination processes. If they refuse, senators should threaten to hold up their confirmation vote, or to refuse to participate in the vote to protest what’s happening to our nation’s premier law enforcement agency. While they’re at it, they should demand that Bove explain who instructed him to fire these FBI leaders and to threaten to fire thousands of agents.
For years, Trump has targeted the FBI as part of his assault on the rule of law. The bureau’s investigation of the thugs who breached the Capitol only intensified Trump’s attacks. Now this campaign has reached a dangerous new low: a political purge that makes us even more unsafe — now, and well into the future.
