Four current and former FBI officials tell NBC News that the head of the bureau has advisers that include a former staffer to one of the FBI’s harshest congressional critics and someone who has been connected to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
According to the current and former officials, the two are part of a team of at least four individuals who have been brought into the FBI to advise its director. Retired FBI agents make up at least two of the new advisers, including Tom Ferguson, a former assistant to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, an outspoken FBI critic and ardent Trump supporter.
There have been no prior reports of the arrival of the individual associated with Space X. The individual’s name has not been verified by NBC News. A request for response from a SpaceX representative was not answered.
It’s unclear who made it possible for the new advisers to arrive and what topics they are concentrating on. A request for comment from a representative for President Trump’s choice to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, was not answered. The FBI didn’t either. On Thursday, Patel’s Senate confirmation hearing will take place.
The new advisers, according to former FBI officials, have raised worries that people with connections to partisan political personalities will be assisting in the management of the most potent law enforcement organization in the country. Some FBI personnel who were briefed on the arrangement are optimistic that it would lead to the implementation of necessary reforms, while others worry that the bureau’s long-standing practice of keeping a distance from politics may be jeopardized.
The director of the FBI, who is chosen by the president for a term of ten years, is the only political appointment, in contrast to the Justice Department. Almost every other employee at the FBI is a career civil servant, just like the CIA.
After veteran FBI director J. Edgar Hoover passed away in 1972, that system was established. Hoover had agents secretly monitor and discredit political figures and organizations for decades, from civil rights activist Martin Luther King to the far-right John Birch Society.
The outsiders are there to advise the FBI on how to reform itself, including sending headquarters staff out into the field, according to Rob D. Amico, a former FBI agent who worked in Afghanistan and on the agency’s hostage rescue team.
He said that was very necessary. Things have become overly focused on headquarters, and when headquarters are located in Washington, DC, political issues inevitably arise.
However, D Amico stated that while FBI staff call the director’s office, it is not typical to have people with connections to partisan political personalities on the seventh floor.
According to D. Amico, this will need to be done with extreme caution. What is the operation of such chain of command? You must exercise extreme caution to avoid imposing party discipline in a manner like to that of the Russian political officer aboard a Russian nuclear submarine.
New advisers
to FBI director
According to his LinkedIn profile, Gregory Mentzer, another former FBI agent, is currently employed in the director’s office. Mentzer merely identifies himself as Director’s Office, FBI. He retired as an FBI agent in 2018 and had been employed as a contract firearms instructor at the FBI Academy. A message on LinkedIn was not answered by Mentzer.
On his LinkedIn profile, Ferguson, a retired FBI agent and former Rep. Jordan staffer, identifies himself as Senior Policy Advisor, Director’s Advisory Team. Ferguson responded that he was simply returning home to assist when NBC News asked him about his employment at the FBI via LinkedIn.
Ferguson announced on LinkedIn that he will be joining the new administration after quitting his role on the House Judiciary committee. He referred to his work there as an honor of a lifetime and said that working for and with Jim Jordan, a legend from my wonderful home state of Ohio, was similarly amazing.
Ferguson directed inquiries to a House Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who chose not to respond.Ferguson’s hiring was earlier reported by CNN.
Jordan, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, has frequently charged that the FBI is a corrupt instrument of the Biden administration without providing concrete proof. He said the FBI discriminated against whistleblowers and assisted in stifling a story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Jordan accuses former Director James Comey and his top aides of being involved in politically motivated FBI investigations of Trump.
Jordan is also a strong backer of Trump’s candidate, Patel, who has referred to the FBI as “one of the most cunning and powerful arms of the Deep State,” a reference to political allegations that government career officials have conspired over Trump’s back.
In writings on LinkedIn, Ferguson has aggressively delved into some of the most contentious culture-war topics in the country, such as discussions about gender and racism.
Ferguson said in a 2021 article slamming the Disney firm for its woke posture that “the vast majority of Americans, including my family, are tired of having the false narrative of systemic racism forced down our throats.”
Ferguson participated in school board protests in Fairfax County, Virginia, some of which were covered nationally, according to news reports and social media posts.
Speaking to Fox News during a protest in 2022, he expressed his disapproval of sex education policy revisions, stating that he believed it was improper for schools to address these politically sensitive, highly dynamic, and perhaps socially sensitive topics at such a young age.
Jordan also disseminated inflated allegations that federal officials were wrongly accusing parents of being domestic terrorists, based on a Justice Department letter intended to enable the FBI to help school districts with threats.
“The FBI has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be,” stated former FBI Director Chris Wray, who Trump appointed to the agency in 2017.
While the FBI waits for a confirmation vote on Patel, its Newark branch is being handled by a career bureau employee who was nominated acting director by Trump. Trump has stated that he will replace Wray, who recently resigned.
Concern among former officials
According to former FBI officials who spoke to NBC News, the bureau has to modernize and adapt, especially in the digital era when cyber threats from China and other competitors are increasing.
The allegations that the FBI was politicized were inflated, according to a former senior officer who spoke openly about the agency and asked to remain anonymous.
I understand the counter-narrative: “We need to turn it upside down and fix everything because the place is so messed up and politicized,” he added. However, provide me with an instance when the organization has failed. Where is the proof? It’s a solution looking for an issue.
A second former FBI official, who wished to remain anonymous due to reprisal concerns, stated that the bureau needs to modernize but voiced concerns about political loyalty tests.
He asserted that there is a distinction between implementing reforms that increase the bureau’s efficacy and efficiency and introducing a biased ideology and expelling those who disagree with it.
The arrangement was troubling on its face, according to Frank Figliuzzi, an NBC News contributor who retired as the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence section after a long career that included other top roles.
Figliuzzi stated that we should all back any effort to implement constructive changes at the country’s most potent law enforcement organization. However, he cautioned that there is a significant belief that this is more about politics than it is about upholding our country’s laws.