US President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to fire “dozens” of FBI agents who probed him and those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump administration officials are especially looking at whether anyone tied in any way to former special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 and classified documents investigations of President Donald Trump should be included in the firings, according to the sources. They are also looking for anyone who may be resistant to carrying out some of the administration’s new initiatives, sources said.
Firings could begin as early as Friday, but a list is expected to be finalized on Monday, sources said.
The list of those who could be fired includes the heads of dozens of field offices across the country and could include scores of agents in the FBI’s Washington, D.C., Field Office alone, sources said.
An FBI spokesperson said in a statement to ABC: “The FBI is declining to comment on any questions regarding FBI personnel matters. We have also instructed the public affairs officers in our field offices to decline to comment as well.”
Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, was pressed Thursday during his confirmation hearing as to whether FBI agents who worked on Smith’s investigations would be protected from “retribution,” should he be confirmed.
“Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard, and no one will be terminated for cases,” Patel said. “All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.”
The FBI Agents Association said the actions “contradict the commitments” Patel made to the association ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing, saying Patel said FBI agents “would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned.”
“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 added 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.”
In the Oval Office later Friday, Trump was asked by reporters about Justice Department employees who may be fired or forced out in the coming days and he appeared to indicate it could be a “good thing.”
“If they fired some people over there, that’s a good thing because they were very bad,” Trump said. “They used the Justice Department to correct their political opponents, which in itself is illegal.”
Asked if he specifically requested any action, Trump denied, “No, but we have some very bad people over there. It was weaponized at a level that nobody’s ever seen before”
