Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll says the bureau had to hand over a list of agents who worked on the January 6 Capitol riot investigation after pressure from the Justice Department under Donald Trump. The agreement, which prevents the public release of the names, comes after Trump vowed to fire 'some corrupt agents' who worked on the cases.
Earlier Friday, FBI agents and the Justice Department reached an agreement to avoid publication of a list of agents who had worked on Capitol riot investigations. 'I will fire some of them,' Trump said, in answer to a reporter’s question at a news conference in Washington with the Japanese prime minister. He added: 'We had some corrupt agents, and those people are gone or they will be gone, and it will be done quickly and very surgically.
' No evidence has surfaced publicly of any misconduct by FBI personnel who investigated Jan. 6 cases, and the vast majority of them resulted in convictions, before Trump. Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll has told his workforce in recent days that they cannot legally be fired without due process. The Justice Department won an legal agreement prohibiting anyone in the government from publicly releasing the names of the thousands of FBI employees who participated in Jan. 6 cases. The agreement came after Driscoll told his employees that the bureau had been forced to turn over the names of special agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb signing off on the agreement, which binds anyone within government from releasing the names of the agents who worked on cases related to the 2021 Capitol riot, while a lawsuit over the issue makes its way through the court system. Nearly three weeks after Trump granted sweeping clemency to rioters convicted for the crimes they committed at the U.S. Capitol, anxiety remains high within the bureau. Multiple sources told NBC News that while there was some internal division over the past four years about the handling of Jan. 6 cases, the actions that the administration has taken against the bureau will leave a lasting mark and have brought much of the bureau’s workforce together. At headquarters and various FBI field offices in the early days of the Trump administration. Then, FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases were Judge to pause Trump administration effort to gut USAID's workforce by thousands, had to return to the office to fill out the survey, according to Natalie Bara, the president of the FBI Agents Association. “If their goal was to paralyze law enforcement,” one federal law enforcement official told NBC News, “they’ve achieved it.” A message circulating among FBI employees and written by an FBI agent, verified by NBC News, described the pain and anger among people who feel targeted for following orders and doing their jobs. “I was assigned to investigate a potential crime,” the agent wrote. “Like all previous cases I have investigated, this one met every legal standard of predication and procedure. Without bias, I upheld my oath to this country and the Constitution and collected the facts. I collected the facts in a manner to neither prove innocence nor guilt, but to arrive at resolution.” Driscoll, who is popular within the bureau, told employees that the office of Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed him to hand over a list of names on Thursday. Driscoll wrote that, given FBI leadership’s “significant concerns” about the personal safety and security of FBI employees, the lists were provided “on the classified enclave” and had been labeled as sensitive law enforcement information. Prosecutors and FBI special agents who worked Jan. 6 cases had already been targeted, and the bureau had worked to give employees tools to protect their personal information and protect themselves from harassment. Early on in the Jan. 6 investigation, initial FBI affidavits redacted the names of FBI special agents to help avert harassment. Inside the FBI, as bureau employees worried about mass firings, they were also concerned that the public release of the names of FBI agents would continue a pattern they’d seen develop before. “We also reiterated once again our concerns for the safety of our personnel, and the risks posed to you and your families should the lists become public,” Driscoll wrote in the letter to FBI employees. For now, Driscoll has won praise from within the bureau for standing up to Trump’s Justice Department leadership. Several sources said the chaos within the bureau has been distracting, with one saying things hadn’t felt this unstable since the Capitol was attacked, which kicked off perhaps the largest investigation in FBI history. One FBI official said that Thursday was the first day that felt relatively normal at the bureau, with many people “exhausted” from the back and forth. The bureau and its employees aren’t “out of the woods yet,” they said, and many employees are worried they are going to be targeted not due to allegations of wrongdoing but because the cases they worked happened to have supporters of the president as defendants. The source said that the message that the Justice Department under Trump has been sending is that no one should work cases involving anyone associated with Trump. “The chilling effect has been crazy,” the official said.
FBI DOJ Capitol Riot Trump Administration January 6Th Law Enforcement Political Turmoil Agent Safety
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
FBI UFO Agents Fear Purge by Trump AdministrationA group of FBI agents investigating UFOs, or UAPs, are worried about losing their jobs and investigations being compromised under a potential Trump-led political purge. One of these agents, Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot and founder of the UAP advocacy organization Americans for Safe Aerospace (ASA), says these agents have been working with ASA for over a year to investigate UAP sightings and evidence. The concern stems from Trump's past actions regarding individuals involved in the January 6 insurrection, specifically commuting sentences and pardoning some of those convicted.
Read more »
Trump administration fires Jan. 6 prosecutors and moves toward ousting FBI agentsThe Trump administration is moving to exert control over federal law enforcement and purge agencies of career employees seen as insufficiently loyal
Read more »
Trump Fires CFPB Director and Purges FBI Agents in Controversial MoveThe Trump administration has fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, amidst a wave of controversy surrounding the firing of numerous FBI agents involved in investigations against the President. This action has raised concerns about political interference and a potential erosion of trust in both agencies.
Read more »
Trump Administration Fires Prosecutors Involved in Jan. 6 Cases, Moves Toward Ousting FBI AgentsActing Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firings of the Jan. 6 prosecutors days after Trump's sweeping clemency action.
Read more »
FBI's secret UFO hunters fear Trump's January 6 purge will send them into orbitMaybe Musk just wants the alien space tech that definitely doesn't exist?
Read more »
FBI Agents Questioned About January 6th InvestigationsThe FBI has sent questionnaires to thousands of agents and employees, seeking details about their involvement in investigations related to the January 6th Capitol riot. This move comes amid a series of high-profile departures and reassignments within the Justice Department, raising concerns about potential political targeting of agents involved in the probes.
Read more »