President Trump's aggressive push to reform the federal government has reached the FBI, where at least six top officials have been told to resign or face termination.
The individuals affected were at the executive assistant director level or special agent in charge level, CNN reported, and were promoted by former director Christopher Wray, who resigned before Trump took office. Dozens of FBI agents who worked on the prosecutions against Trump are also facing termination, CNN reported.
A current FBI official complained to NBC News that the shakeup is "highly disruptive," a description the Trump administration would probably agree with.
Trump has repeatedly pledged to clean house at the FBI and turn the page on a dark era of weaponized government. The Justice Department has already fired a dozen lawyers who worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith on the unsuccessful, and unprecedented, effort to prosecute Trump during his re-election campaign against former President Biden and, later, vice president Kamala Harris.
The Justice Department ordered an additional round of firings Friday, terminating over a dozen D.C. prosecutors who worked on January 6th cases. Trump's acting deputy US Attorney General Emil Bove blasted "subversive" last-minute attempts by the Biden administration to make those jobs permanent.
“I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous Administration at any U.S. Attorney’s Office. Too much is at stake,” Bove added.
CNN reported Friday that dozens of FBI agents who worked on the Trump and January 6th cases are also facing termination. The purge has rattled FBI insiders, who say individual agents have little control over their caseloads and in some instances were reluctant to move forward with the politically sensitive investigations.
Still, the FBI's troubling interventions in politics - including the infamous raid of the president's Florida home - have convinced many that a clean slate is needed to restore trust in the agency.
President Trump has been feuding with the FBI for years, beginning with the agency's unprecedented surveillance of Trump's 2016 campaign on the basis of spurious opposition research collected by Trump's rival Hillary Clinton.
The FBI's public reputation was further tarnished by its handling of Hunter Biden's laptop, the notorious raid of Mar-A-Lago, and efforts to combat so-called domestic terrorism that targeted conservative parents and traditional Catholics.
The news of Trump's FBI purge was leaked Thursday as his FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, was grilled by Senate Democrats over his loyalty to the president. Patel pledged to "de-politicize" the FBI and disavowed any plans to pursue retribution against Trump's political enemies.
"I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards," Patel said at his confirmation hearing. "There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken."
