The Trump administration is planning to broaden its purge of career law enforcement officials, requesting the names of those who worked on the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations for possible removal – a move that could affect thousands.
According to an email obtained by CNN from acting FBI director Brian Driscoll, FBI leaders were instructed Friday to provide the Justice Department with information about all current and former bureau employees who “at any time” worked on the January 6 investigations by Tuesday.
According to the email, the Justice Department will review the employees to “determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
This request,” Driscoll wrote to all bureau personnel, “includes thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigations.” The acting director stated in the email that such a list would include both him and the acting deputy director.
The requested list, which interim DOJ leaders spent the previous week compiling, demonstrates how the new administration has moved quickly to carry out President Donald Trump’s promise to strike back at the Justice Department and FBI, which he claims have been weaponized against him.
Trump has falsely accused agents of abuse during their court-ordered search of his Mar-a-Lago home, as well as their treatment of Capitol rioters.
The FBI and Justice Department have declined to comment.
Driscoll attached to the email a memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove titled “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,” according to Bove.
“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 mentioned the removal of senior FBI officials, which CNN had previously reported.
“The FBI — including the Bureau’s prior leadership — actively participated in what President Trump appropriated 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 reported.
The Justice Department also requested information on FBI personnel who worked on a criminal case filed by the previous administration in September against several high-ranking Hamas members in connection with the October 7, 2023 attack.
In his email, Driscoll stated: “we are going to follow the law, follow FBI policy, and do what is in the best interest of the workforce and the American people.”
Line-level agents and analysts told CNN that Friday’s notices of expected termination sent shockwaves throughout the FBI.
“This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor,” according to one officer. “Even for those not fired, it sends the message that the bureau is no longer independent.”
According to one employee, the January 6 case involved over a thousand defendants from across the country and was the FBI’s largest investigation ever.
“Everyone touched this case,” the employee stated.
January 6 prosecutors fired
On Friday, the Justice Department fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, according to communications obtained by CNN.
The prosecutors had been assigned to the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, on a temporary basis to handle Capitol riot cases. However, at the end of the Biden administration, their positions were converted to permanent status, according to a separate DOJ memo obtained by CNN and distributed throughout the DC US attorney’s office led 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 the same memo.
I will not tolerate the previous administration’s subversive personnel actions in any US Attorney’s Office. “Too much is at stake,” he said.
The Trump purge at the DOJ’s main headquarters began last week, just minutes after the new interim leaders were sworn in, when some senior career lawyers were informed that they were being reassigned to a task force focused on immigration-related issues and so-called sanctuary cities, which generally refuse to assist federal deportation efforts.
The reassignment is widely perceived as an attempt to remove senior career officials, some of whom have since resigned.
James McHenry, the acting attorney general, sent emails to those who were fired that included the following language: “Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda.”
Some agents claim Trump and other critics misunderstand that FBI agents and supervisors cannot choose which assignments they receive as part of their job.
The FBI workforce is broadly conservative, and was previously led by lifelong Republican Christopher Wray. Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, is currently awaiting Senate confirmation.
Many agents were initially skeptical of being assigned to the Capitol attack and Trump cases, viewing the prosecutions as overly harsh, according to people familiar with the situation. Some Justice Department lawyers in charge of January 6 cases complained that agents were sometimes slow to complete their tasks.
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, joined the FBI as a policy adviser. Jordan has been a vocal critic of the FBI and chaired a subcommittee on the alleged weaponization of government agencies, including the FBI.
According to people briefed on the meeting, FBI Agents Association officials met with Patel in recent weeks to express concerns about potential agent firings and urged him to protect agents who worked on investigations of violent crimes with oversight from judges, FBI supervisors, and Justice Department lawyers.
“During our meeting, he stated that agents would be given appropriate process and review and would not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned,” the agents’ association said in a statement.
The release further cautioned 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 Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination, Patel stated that he was unaware 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?” requested Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat.
“I am not aware of that, Senator,” Patel responded.
