The FBI and the Justice Department have reached an agreement to prevent the public release of a list of FBI agents who worked on investigations into the January 6th Capitol riot. This decision comes amidst increasing anxiety within the bureau following former President Trump’s statements threatening to fire agents he deemed 'corrupt'.
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 FBI had won a 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 Justice Department has taken against the bureau will leave a lasting mark and have brought much of the bureau’s workforce together. FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases were subject to a survey 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 Justice Department Capitol Riot Donald Trump Agent Identities Law Enforcement
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
FBI Agents Sue Over Justice Department's Probe Into Agents Involved in Trump-Related InvestigationsFBI agents who participated in investigations related to President Donald Trump have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Justice Department, alleging that efforts to compile a list of their identities are retaliatory and intended to intimidate them.
Read more »
FBI Agents Sue Justice Department Over Alleged 'Purge' of Agents Involved in January 6 ProbeA group of FBI agents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Justice Department, accusing it of an 'unlawful and retaliatory' directive from President Donald Trump to remove agents involved in the January 6 Capitol riot and classified-documents investigations. The lawsuit alleges that the Justice Department is using questionnaires to identify agents who worked on these cases for potential termination or other adverse employment actions.
Read more »
Trump Justice Department Questions Thousands of FBI Agents Involved in January 6 InquiryThe Trump administration Justice Department is questioning thousands of FBI agents involved in investigations related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, potentially leading to disciplinary actions including firings. This unusual scrutiny raises concerns about political interference in the FBI.
Read more »
FBI Agents Block Justice Department Effort to Examine Roles in Trump and Jan. 6 InvestigationsNine FBI agents have filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration's attempt to gather information on thousands of agents who worked on investigations related to President Trump and the January 6th Capitol attack. The agents argue that any use of this information to fire employees would be unlawful and retaliatory, raising concerns about potential threats to their safety. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the Justice Department from compiling or sharing lists of agents involved in these cases.
Read more »
FBI Agents Sue Justice Department, Saying January 6 Felons Could Seek Retribution Against ThemThe website that Washington lives by.
Read more »
FBI Agents Sue Justice Department, Claiming Retaliatory Survey Targets Them for TerminationTwo groups of unnamed FBI agents who worked on investigations into the January 6th Capitol attack and Donald Trump's handling of classified documents have filed lawsuits against the Justice Department, alleging that a survey about their roles in these cases is intended to identify them for termination as politically motivated retaliation.
Read more »