FBI Lays Groundwork for Mass Firing of Agents

There won't be political retribution, Patel had assured Senate panel
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 31, 2025 5:15 PM CST
FBI Tries to Identify Agents to Fire for Work on Trump Cases
Kash Patel, President Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing at the Capitol on Thursday.   (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

One day after Kash Patel, President Trump's nominee for FBI director, told Congress that the agency would not engage in retribution, multiple outlets reported that as many as hundreds of agents who worked on investigations of Trump or his allies are being examined for possible firing. The FBI is compiling lists of agents involved in special counsel Jack Smith's investigations of the Trump cases concerning classified documents and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the Washington Post reports. Agents who helped build the cases against Capitol rioters also are targets.

Employees at FBI headquarters have been asked to turn over internal files from those investigations, which the Trump administration is checking for the names of agents and their supervisors. "All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution," Patel testified Thursday during his Senate confirmation hearing, per the New York Times. Also this week, a group of senior FBI executives was forced out, per the AP.

The FBI Agents Association called the planned firings "outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents." Such a mass firing would weaken the FBI's ability to guard against national security and criminal threats, the group said. The AP says such a mass firing "would be a major blow to the historic independence from the White House of the nation's nation's premier federal law enforcement agency." (More FBI stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X