President Trump’s Justice Department is likely to fire many of the FBI agents who investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
CNN reported Friday that Trump appointees are compiling lists of dozens of agents across the Bureau for potential termination. All of these agents worked on the investigation of Jan 6 attackers or Trump himself. According to sources, those agents could be fired as soon as the end of the day on Friday.
The news follows reports that Trump informed leaders within the organization to “resign or be fired” earlier this week.
Acting Attorney General James McHenry send a termination notice via email to agents who were assigned to investigate Trump himself.
“Given your significant role in prosecuting the President,” McHenry wrote in the email, “I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
At the same time the Trump justice department was preparing for mass firings within the department, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI was creating controversy on Capitol Hill.
Kash Patel, a far-right conspiracy theorist and Trump loyalist, faced difficult questions from Democrats in his confirmation hearing.
According to ABC News, Patel has made frequent statements about utilizing the justice department to get retribution for Trump. “He said it’s his mission to ‘annihilate’ the so-called ‘Deep State’ of ‘unelected tyrants’ inside government,” ABC News reported.
Mass firings of FBI agents as Trump regains power
Attacks on the FBI come as Trump continues efforts to purge the government of workers he deems as disloyal.
Earlier in the week, the administration sent out a notice requiring all federal workers to inform their departments whether or not they would return to in-person work at the end of February. According to some employees, remote workers were not told what location they would be required to report to. The notice gave workers until next week to decide whether they will return or take a severance buy-out. Workers who refuse to return to in-person work will be terminated.
Many agency officials, including in the Transportation Security Administration, say the move will likely harm productivity and national security.
Trump and his administration have already come under fire for the perceived consequences of his federal purge. After forcing the former FAA commissioner to resign upon him taking office, Trump disbanded key airline safety agencies and fired FAA workers. Just days later, the country experienced its first commercial airline crash in nearly two decades.
It’s unclear what wide-reaching consequences mass firings of employees in the FBI and across government will ultimately have.
In a statement, the FBI Agents Association responded to news of the potential mass firings, calling it “outrageous”.
“Dismissing potentially hundreds of Agents would severely weaken the Bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security,” the association wrote.