FBI officials have caved to demands from the Justice Department, providing a list of agents involved in the J6 Capitol riot investigations — and it’s an insanely high number.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove instructed FBI leadership to meet a deadline of noon Tuesday to submit the names of these agents and analysts. This follows his earlier directive to fire eight senior FBI officials.
CNN reports that “More than 5,000 names were submitted” to the Justice Department in response to Bove’s demand.
Five thousand? Are you kidding me?
To put it into proper context, there are only roughly 13,000 agents and 38,000 total FBI employees. This means that roughly 13% of the entire FBI was tasked with investigating protestors.
If that seems excessive to you, you’re not the only one.
CNN, of course, is outraged that the mask is off the anti-Trump Gestapo.
Meanwhile, officials dispatched by Elon Musk have been seen at FBI headquarters. Musk has headed up efforts by President Donald Trump’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
But several FBI employees on Tuesday sued the Justice Department, accusing it of violating the Constitution and privacy laws by demanding that agents complete a survey allegedly designed to “purge” bureau personnel. The agents want a federal judge to block the Trump administration from publishing or releasing the surveys or any information included in their answers.
“The very act of compiling lists of persons who worked on matters that upset Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature, intended to intimidate FBI agents and other personnel, and to discourage them from reporting any future malfeasance and by Donald Trump and his agents,” the lawsuit alleges.
The surveyed agents were required to complete questions about their roles at the bureau and their involvement in the January 6 investigations. According to a copy of the survey included in the lawsuit, agents were asked whether they had executed arrests, participated in grand jury proceedings, or testified at trials. The lawsuit, filed as a class-action complaint, was brought by several anonymous FBI employees.
On Monday, advocacy groups representing federal law enforcement urged Congress to stop the Trump administration from purging career FBI officials, CNN reports.
The top FBI agent in New York comforted his colleagues by stating that he is establishing a "foxhole" to safeguard them from termination. Meanwhile, the FBI Agents Association sent an email to members instructing them: “Do NOT resign or offer to resign.” The message stressed, “While we would never advocate for physical non-compliance, you need to be clear your removal is not voluntary.”
Lawyers representing prosecutors and FBI agents argued that firing employees involved in Trump-related investigations would be a “violation of the due process rights” and threatened legal action. In a letter to senior DOJ officials, they warned, “If you proceed with terminations and/or public exposure of terminated employees’ identities, we stand ready to vindicate their rights through all available legal means.” They also cautioned that if agents’ names were made public, they could face “immediate risk of doxing, swatting, harassment, or possibly worse.”
CNN was naturally unfazed by the absurdly high number of FBI personnel tasked with investigating J6 protestors.
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