A half-dozen current and former federal law enforcement officials with experience in the FBI told NBC News that the agency’s workforce has been distracted and destabilized by first-of-its-kind lawsuits, nearly daily staff memos from the little-known acting FBI director, and agents’ intense fear of losing their jobs.
Following a Trump administration request for the names of thousands of agents tasked with working on investigations related to the Capitol riots, tensions have arisen within the nation’s most powerful federal law enforcement agency. Fears of mass firings have not been allayed by the administration’s assurances that it will examine agents’ behavior rather than terminate them.
According to current and former law enforcement sources, the FBI may be impacted in three harmful ways if the next administration dismisses or penalizes agents participating in the Jan. 6 investigations, which are known within the bureau as simply “1-6.”
National security risk
The FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, which runs Joint Terrorism Task Forces in cities around the nation alongside federal and local law enforcement agencies, employs a large number of the agents participating in the investigations of the disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. These operatives look into threats of terrorism from both domestic and foreign organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, and ISIS.
The sources, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to publicly discuss bureau dynamics, stated that FBI agents make up the majority of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in the United States. Additionally, court records and public filings indicate that the FBI brings the majority of terrorism charges.
According to current and former officials, the FBI’s capacity to fight terrorist threats is seriously threatened by the possible elimination of thousands of those personnel, with some estimating that there may be over 4,000 counterterrorism agents.
According to the officials, the agents who worked on the cases on January 6 were frequently directed to do so by their superiors or by court orders. Assignments are not chosen by agents or other FBI employees.
According to the current and former officials, punishing thousands of Jan. 6 case agents may also harm FBI operations unrelated to terrorism. For instance, agents were also brought in to work on Jan. 6 cases from smaller FBI field offices. Smaller FBI field offices that look into wrongdoing by local law enforcement organizations, businesses, and public authorities may be impacted if those agents are dismissed.
Public corruption risk
FBI agents may be discouraged from looking into issues concerning the second Trump administration in the future if they are retaliated against for their work on the Jan. 6 investigations.
According to the current and former officials, they question if FBI agents would be open to looking into someone in Trump’s inner circle, for instance. An earlier example would be Paul Manafort, the manager of Trump’s 2016 campaign, who was the subject of an FBI investigation and found guilty of bank and tax crimes.
Current and former officials claim that a probe into a Manafort-like figure would shock agents and possibly lead some to decline to look into him, claiming fear of retaliation. Agents may also consider the ramifications of looking into well-known Democrats in the event that they win the presidency again.
Democratic leaders, for instance, have not demanded that FBI agents who worked on the investigations of Hunter Biden and former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., be fired. According to the officials, FBI staff are worried that the retribution pendulum might swing both ways.
According to a former FBI officer who wished to remain anonymous due to concerns about reprisals, the ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 agents will have a long-term effect. According to the former official, the chilling impact has a long tail. Everyone is being placed on notice by you. “We’re watching you,” they say.
Retention and recruitment risks
According to current and former officials, firing agents would also probably hurt efforts to recruit new agents and keep senior agents.
According to the person, agents who were fired for their work on cases from January 6 would not be allowed to find employment with other federal law enforcement agency. They would probably receive lower compensation and fewer retirement benefits if they were employed by local police agencies.
According to the government, the agents’ families will have an immediate economic impact. Agents are usually the only providers for their families because they work long hours and spend a lot of time away from home.
According to current and former officials, what surprises agents is that many sincerely thought a new government would bring about positive change. Many agents thought that a new FBI director would implement much-needed improvements to the agency’s management and organizational structure.
According to the authorities, they hoped that more agents would be dispatched from Washington headquarters to the field. They also hoped that new technology, which many officials told NBC News is desperately required, would be embraced.
An unlikely leader
An unexpected leader has arisen as the workforce has been rocked by rumors of mass layoffs in ways not seen in decades. Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll Jr., a career agent and the head of the FBI’s field office in Newark, New Jersey, has been praised by staffers for resisting orders to remove officers and for standing up to Trump appointees. According to current and former agents, Driscoll occasionally rejected the efforts so strongly that they were afraid he may be expelled himself.
Driscoll published a video on Tuesday that highlighted the FBI’s recent successes, including the arrest of two individuals on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list and the roles that agents played in looking into the plane disasters in Philadelphia and over Washington, D.C.
Driscoll declared, “We will never lose sight of our mission, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution.” At the Bureau, we are focused on the job, the people we work with, our partners, and the American people, who are the people we work for.
Current and former officials indicate that agents give Driscoll credit for halting mass firings for the time being. They are also aware that he could be fired at any time by the Trump administration.