Trump pledges FBI reform, but big purge of agents could backfire

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Since his first term in office, President Donald Trump has viewed federal law enforcement as being weaponized against him. Now, his second administration may be looking to respond in kind.

The past week has seen confusion and anxiety spread through two agencies that have drawn President Trump’s ire. Senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were forced out or reassigned in recent days, according to news reports. That high-level reshuffling could soon develop into a broader purge of FBI personnel, the reports say, targeting agents involved in the investigation of Trump supporters who assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Precise details of how the United States’ leading law enforcement agencies could be reworked are still unclear. But reports of possible widespread FBI firings have come after senior Justice Department officials were removed or reassigned last month. On Tuesday, FBI leaders provided Trump administration officials with details of 5,000 employees who worked on Jan. 6 investigations. Earlier that day, two groups of anonymous FBI agents sued to block the Justice Department from publicly releasing that information.

Why We Wrote This

Possible widespread firings of FBI​ agents,​ seen by some as a way to reform the agency, ​are also raising concerns about ​its ability to keep the public safe and to be politically independent.

The turmoil follows years of claims from Mr. Trump and his supporters that they have been targeted because of their political beliefs.

The FBI has undergone significant reorganization before, but experts say the volume of firings the Trump administration is now considering would be unprecedented for the agency.

Police direct traffic outside Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Aug. 8, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida. Several senior FBI officials have reportedly been fired or asked to resign, including those leading field offices in Miami and Washington, both centers of investigations involving President Trump.

Legal experts and former FBI agents – even those critical of the agency’s actions in recent years – are expressing concerns. Widespread firings may cause more problems than they solve, they say, not only eroding the agency’s independence from politics but also disrupting its ability to keep the public safe.

“I voted for President Trump all three times. But whatever’s going on now is not what should be occurring,” says Thomas Raftery, a former FBI agent. “If they were to fire the number [of agents] that I saw [in the news], that would set the FBI back years.”

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