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'Trump DOJ demands list of thousands of FBI agents, others who worked on
Jan. 6 and Trump investigations for possible firing'
<
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/politics/fbi-agents-who-investigated-january-6-fired/index.html>
'CNN
—
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.”
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to
reporters from the Resolute Desk after signing an executive order to
appoint the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration
in the Oval Office at the White House on January 30, 2025 in Washington,
DC. Trump also signed a memorandum ordering an immediate assessment of
aviation safety and ordering an elevation of what he called “competence” over “D.E.I.” (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“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.
January 6 prosecutors fired
Also on Friday, more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on January 6
cases were fired by the Justice Department, according to communications obtained by CNN,
The prosecutors had worked in the US attorney’s office in Washington,
DC, on a temporary basis on Capitol riot cases. But at the end of the
Biden administration, their jobs were being converted to permanent
status, according to a separate DOJ memo obtained by CNN and circulated
across the DC US attorney’s office headed by Ed Martin.
“The manner in which these conversions were executed resulted in the
mass, purportedly permanent hiring of a group of AUSAs in the weeks
leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration, which has
improperly hindered the ability of acting U.S. Attorney Martin to staff
his Office in furtherance of his obligation to faithfully implement the
agenda that the American people elected President Trump to execute,”
Bove wrote in that memo.
Kash Patel appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his
confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 30.
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“I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous Administration at any U.S. Attorney’s Office. Too much is at stake,” he added.
The Trump purge at DOJ’s main headquarters began last week – within
minutes of the new interim leaders being sworn in – as some senior
career lawyers were notified that they were being reassigned to a task
force focused to immigration-related issues and so-called sanctuary
cities, jurisdictions that generally decline to assist federal
deportation efforts. The reassignment is widely viewed as an effort to
force out senior career officials, some of whom have since resigned.
Emails sent by James McHenry, the acting attorney general, to those
being ousted from their jobs have included language that reads: “Given
your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe
that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in
implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
Some agents say Trump and other critics misunderstand that FBI agents
and supervisors can’t choose which assignments they are given as part of their job. The FBI workforce is broadly conservative and until recently
were led for years by lifelong Republican Christopher Wray. The
nomination of Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, is pending in
the Senate.
Many agents initially had qualms about being assigned to the Capitol
attack and Trump cases, viewing the prosecutions as heavy-handed, people familiar with the matter said. Some Justice Department lawyers leading
January 6 cases complained that they believed agents sometimes
slow-walked some of their work.
Firings would ‘severely weaken’ bureau, agents association says
Shortly after Trump took office, Tom Ferguson, a former agent and aide
to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, arrived at the FBI headquarters as a
policy adviser. Jordan has been a staunch FBI critic and led a
subcommittee on purported weaponization of government agencies,
including the FBI.
The FBI Agents Association officials met with Patel in recent weeks to
raise concerns about possible firings of agents, urging him to protect
agents who did their work investigating violent crimes with oversight
from judges, FBI supervisors and Justice Department lawyers, according
to people briefed on the meeting.
“During our meeting, he said that agents would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to
which they were assigned,” the agents association said in a statement.
The statement also warned that “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.”
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on his
nomination, Patel said he didn’t know of any upcoming personnel plans.
“Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way,
including termination, FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?” asked Democratic Sen. Cory Booker.
“I am not aware of that, senator,” Patel replied'
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