Trump on the verge of firing hundreds of FBI agents
Senate Republicans fear reigning in the petty tyrant
By Mike Sorrell
The years-long temper tantrum of President Donald Trump poses a serious threat to the rule of law and national security, and yet Republicans stand back in silence like parents of a spoiled child. They do not interfere.
Trump’s anger and desire for revenge are rooted in his refusal to acknowledge why the FBI and Justice Department investigated, charged and prosecuted him for his role in directing a January 6, 2022, insurrectionist mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and for illegally keeping hundreds of classified government documents he illegally took with him and refused to turn over after he left office in 2022.
Two federal court cases against him were slowly going through the federal court system, but they ended in a screeching halt in November when Trump got elected for a second time. The Justice Department does not prosecute sitting presidents. Trump could count himself lucky, or shrewd, and move forward and focus on his current job as president. Instead, he purges federal lawyers and law enforcement agents who he says “weaponized” the government against him.
Dozens of experienced federal prosecutors and top FBI officials essentially had their jobs terminated over the past several days. Hundreds, or maybe thousands, might lose their jobs if the current purge turns into an all-out bloodbath.
That high number is not necessarily an exaggeration because Brian Driscoll, acting director of the FBI, was ordered in a memo Friday to provide a list of names of everyone in the FBI who had anything to do with investigating people involved in marching on the U.S. Capitol, which led to the convictions of nearly 1,600 people, including some who violently assaulted law enforcement officers. That was the largest investigation in the history of the FBI, involving agents in field offices throughout the country. Driscoll, to his credit, has so far refused to provide the list.
The Hill, one of numerous websites, newspapers and wire services doing investigative reporting on the purges this weekend, reports that the Trump administration has fired the heads of FBI field offices in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans and Los Angeles.
Four top managers at FBI headquarters in Washington were sacked, according to NBC News: Ryan Young of the intelligence branch; Robert Nordwall, head of criminal and cyber response; Jessica Maguire of science and technology and Robert Wells of the national security branch. Those FBI employees, who each spent years developing their specific kinds of expertise, will no longer be able to work at the FBI unless a court steps in negates the Trump administration’s firings.
Bradley Moss, an attorney who represents federal employees, has said, "What we are seeing is a raw, unfiltered exercise of presidential authority to purge the government of anyone who put the Constitution first, instead of adherence or loyalty to Donald Trump."
Trump, while seeking to eviscerate the nation’s top law enforcement agency, has pardoned and set free from jails and prisons the nearly 1,600 men and women convicted in the attack on the Capitol. He calls them “patriots,” and among them are white supremacists, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. FBI investigators spent thousands of hours and spent millions of dollars building cases against the 1,600 who will now have their records wiped clean.
Meanwhile, Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for director of the FBI, is expected to win confirmation by the Republican-dominated Senate.
Among the many reasons Patel is unqualified for the job is the fact that, grifter that he is, Patel co-produced, promoted and sold a record by the so-called “J6 Prison Choir.” The choir's members, described by Patel as “political prisoners,” were in the Washington, D.C. jail because they were among the rioters convicted in the Jan. 6th case.
Up for Senate confirmation, too, is Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general. She and Patel both told Senate committees last week that they won’t engage in retribution, although both have said the FBI and Justice Department under President Biden were "weaponized" against Trump.
This weekend, Trump used his acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, to fire about two dozen experienced Justice Department attorneys and to send memos to the acting FBI director, Driscoll, in which Bove orders the FBI firings. Trump claims he had nothing to do those actions.
The timing of the purges comes as Senate Republicans decide whether to confirm Patel and Bondi. That gives Republicans an opportunity to shake off the fear of Donald Trump and vote to reject one or both of those nominees, while also rejecting Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s unqualified nominee for director of national security.
Republicans probably will continue to sing with the choir.