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WASHINGTON: The FBI has continued its personnel purge, forcing out additional agents and supervisors tied to the federal investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The latest firings came despite efforts by Washington’s top federal prosecutor to try to stop at least some of the terminations, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The employees were told this week that they were being fired but those plans were paused after D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro raised concerns, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters.
The agents were then fired again Tuesday, though it’s not clear what prompted the about-face. The total number of fired agents was not immediately clear.
The terminations are part of a broader personnel upheaval under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, who has pushed out numerous senior officials and agents involved in investigations or actions that have angered the Trump administration. Three ousted high-ranking FBI officials sued Patel in September, accusing him of caving to political pressure to carry out a “campaign of retribution.”
Spokespeople for Patel and Pirro didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Tuesday.
The FBI Agents Association, which has criticized Patel for the firings, said the director has “disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”
“The actions yesterday — in which FBI Special Agents were terminated and then reinstated shortly after, and then only to be fired again today — highlight the chaos that occurs when long-standing policies and processes are ignored,” the association said. “An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination.”
The 2020 election investigation that ultimately led to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump has come under intense scrutiny from GOP lawmakers, who have accused the Biden administration Justice Department of being weaponized against conservatives. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has in recent weeks released documents from the investigation provided by the FBI, including ones showing that investigators analyzed phone records from more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers as part of their inquiry.
The Justice Department has fired prosecutors and other department employees who worked on Smith’s team, and the FBI has similarly forced out agents and senior officials for a variety of reasons as part of an ongoing purge that has added to the tumult and sense of unease inside the bureau.
The FBI in August ousted the head of the bureau’s Washington field office as well as the former acting director who resisted Trump administration demands to turn over the names of agents who participated in Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigations. And in September, it fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.