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The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, with dozens of FBI agents who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations as well as some supervisors being evaluated for possible removal as soon as the end of Friday, according to people briefed on the matter.
The changes highlight 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.
Interim leaders at the Justice Department have spent the past week drawing up lists of people whose work at the bureau has earned disfavor with Trump for a variety of reasons. Agents and analysts have been warned by FBI leadership that they may be asked to resign or face termination.
Agents who worked the investigation of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, and those who investigated the roughly 1,600 rioters charged or convicted connected to the violent Capitol attack have been concerned they could face retribution for doing work they were assigned to do.
The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.
According to communications obtained by CNN, more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases had their employment terminated by the Justice Department Friday.
The prosecutors who lost their jobs 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 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,” acting deputy US Attorney General Emil Bove wrote.
“I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous Administration at any U.S. Attorney’s Office. Too much is at stake,” Bove 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.”
And at the FBI, at least six senior FBI leaders have been ordered to retire, resign or be fired by Monday, sources briefed on the matter have told CNN.
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 say. Some Justice Department lawyers leading January 6 cases complained that they believed agents sometimes slow-walked some of their work.
“If true, these outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents,” the FBI Agents Association said in a statement. “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.”
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.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on his nomination, Patel said he doesn’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.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.