First-of-their-kind lawsuits, near-daily staff memos from the little-known acting FBI director and abject fear among agents that they could lose their jobs have distracted and destabilized the FBI workforce, a half-dozen current and former federal law enforcement officials with experience in the bureau told NBC News.
The tensions at the country’s most powerful federal law enforcement agency follow a Trump administration request for the names of thousands of agents assigned to work on Capitol riot-related investigations. Assurances from the administration that it will review agents’ conduct and not necessarily fire them have not quelled fears of mass firings.
If the new administration fires or punishes agents involved in the Jan. 6 investigations — referred to within the bureau as simply “1-6″ — it could affect the FBI in three dangerous ways, the current and former officials law enforcement officials said.
National security risk
Many of the agents involved in the investigations of the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, work in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, which operates Joint Terrorism Task Forces in cities across the country with federal and local law enforcement agencies. Those agents investigate terrorism threats both from inside the United States and from overseas groups, such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Most of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in the United States are primarily made up of FBI agents, said the officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss dynamics in the bureau. And most of the terrorism cases are brought by the FBI, according to court documents and public filings.
So the potential removal of thousands of those agents — some estimate the number of counterterrorism agents could be over 4,000 — poses a major threat to the FBI’s ability to combat terrorist threats, the current and former officials say.
The agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases were assigned to do so by superiors or by court orders in many instances, the officials noted. Agents and other FBI staff members do not pick their assignments.
Punishing thousands of Jan. 6 case agents could also damage FBI operations not related to terrorism, the current and former officials say. Agents from smaller FBI field offices, for example, were also brought in to work on Jan. 6 cases. Dismissing those agents could affect smaller FBI field offices that investigate misconduct by local law enforcement agencies, corporations and public officials.
Public corruption risk
Retaliation against agents who worked on Jan. 6 investigations could also have a chilling effect on FBI agents’ desire to investigate future cases involving the second Trump administration.
The current and former officials say they wonder whether FBI officials would be willing to investigate, for example, a person in Trump’s personal orbit. A past example would Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, who was investigated by FBI agents and convicted of tax and bank fraud.
An investigation into a Manafort-like figure would dismay agents and potentially prompt some to refuse to investigate him, citing fear of reprisal, current and former officials say. Agents might also wonder about the consequences of investigating prominent Democratic figures, should they retake the White House.
Democratic leaders have not called for the firing of FBI agents involved in the investigations of former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., or Hunter Biden, for example. But FBI personnel are concerned that the payback pendulum could swing both ways, the officials say.
A former FBI official who asked not to be named, citing fears of retaliation, predicted that the current probe of Jan. 6 agents will have a lasting impact. “The chilling effect — it has a long tail,” the former official said. “You’re putting everyone on notice. They’re saying, ‘We’re watching you.’”
Retention and recruitment risks
Firing agents would also be likely to damage efforts to retain veteran agents and recruit new ones, the current and former officials say.
Agents fired for their work on Jan. 6 cases would be unable to get hired by other federal law enforcement agencies, the official say. If they managed to get hired by local police departments, it would most likely be for less pay and lower retirement benefits.
The economic impact on agents’ families would be immediate, the officials say. Since agents frequently work long hours and spend extensive time away from home, they are often their families’ sole breadwinners.
What surprises agents is that many genuinely believed that a new administration would bring positive change, the current and former officials say. Many agents hoped a new FBI director would bring much-needed changes to the structure and management of the FBI.
They hoped more agents would be sent into the field from headquarters in Washington, the officials say. And they hoped that new technology would be adopted, which many officials told NBC News is sorely needed.
An unlikely leader
As rumors of mass layoffs have shaken the workforce in ways not seen in decades, an unexpected leader has emerged. Staffers have lauded acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll Jr., a career agent and the head of the FBI’s field office in Newark, New Jersey, for standing up to Trump appointees and pushing back against orders for agents to be fired. Current and former agents said Driscoll resisted the efforts so forcefully at times that they feared he might be forced out himself.
On Tuesday, Driscoll released a video touting the FBI’s recent accomplishments, including recent arrests of two people on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives list and agents’ roles in investigating the plane crashes over Washington, D.C., and in Philadelphia.
“We will never take our eyes off of our mission, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution,” Driscoll said. “Because at the bureau we’re focused on the work, the people we do the work with, our partners and the people we do the work for, the American people.”
Agents credit Driscoll with stopping mass firings, for now, current and former officials say. They also know that the Trump administration could remove him at any time.
