WASHINGTON, Feb 1 — FBI agents who participated in the investigations that led to now-abandoned criminal charges against President Donald Trump are expected to be fired, US media reported yesterday.
Dozens of FBI agents involved in the probe of Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021 and some supervisors are also “being evaluated for possible removal as soon as the end of Friday,” CNN said, quoting people briefed on the matter.
NBC News said the purge includes more than 20 heads of Federal Bureau of Investigation field offices including those in Miami and Washington.
According to CNN, at least six senior FBI leaders have been ordered to “retire, resign or be fired by Monday.”
The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the plan, said “officials are working to identify potentially hundreds (of FBI agents) for possible termination.”
The newspaper added that the FBI’s acting director, Brian Driscoll, a veteran FBI agent who was appointed by Trump to run the bureau until his nominee as director is confirmed by the Senate, had refused to approve the mass firings.
The Justice Department fired a number of officials on Monday who were involved in the prosecutions of Trump.
A Justice Department official said the officials were being terminated because the acting attorney general did not believe they “could be trusted to faithfully implement the president’s agenda.”
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal cases against Trump, resigned earlier this month.
Smith charged Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.
Neither case came to trial and Smith — in line with a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after the Republican won November’s presidential election.
Trump, on his first day in the White House last week, pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in a bid to block congressional certification of Biden’s victory.
FBI director Christopher Wray resigned following Trump’s reelection and the president has named Kash Patel, his former advisor and staunch loyalist, to head the top US law enforcement agency.
Patel, at his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee on Thursday, was asked if he was aware of any plans to punish FBI agents who were involved in the investigations of Trump.
“I am not aware of that,” he said.
Patel also told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” — AFP
