Friday, the acting director of the FBI, Brian Driscoll, refused an order from the Ministry of Justice which he helps in the dismissal of the agents involved in the riot of January 6, repelling so with force that some FBI officials feared Let him be rejected, said several current and former FBI officials to NBC Nouvelles.
The Ministry of Justice has not finally rejected Driscoll, the head of the office of the Newark field of the office who is temporarily acting director.
The Senate is currently examining if Kash Patel, the choice of President Trump for the director of the FBI, should be confirmed. Long -standing criticism of the office surveys on Trump and January 6, Patel promised the senators during his confirmation hearing that no FBI officials would be retaliated.
“All FBI employees will be protected from political reprisals,” said a patel under oath on Thursday.
Just over 24 hours later, Driscoll informed the FBI workforce that he had received the order to withdraw eight senior executives from the FBI by Emil Bove, the acting assistant attorney and the former lawyer Trump’s personal defense.
DRISCOLL also said that it was said to put the names of each FBI employee involved in the survey on the rioters on January 6.
Driscoll said that the eight managers had been forced to go out but did not say if he made the broader list of FBI investigators linked to January 6 – a list he noted includes thousands of FBI employees, including him.
Former member of the Elite hostage rescue team of the FBI, Driscoll has promised agents that he would follow the law and existing FBI policies.
“As we have said since the moment we have agreed to play these roles, we will follow the law, follow the policy of the FBI and do what is in the best interest of the American workforce and the people -Still, “he wrote.
In a message that was widely circulating among office staff, an FBI agent summarized what happened as: “In the end – the Doj came and wanted to draw a bunch of J6 agents. Driscoll is an absolute stud. Held his terrain and said to WH Proxy, Doj, to F — OFF. »»
The FBI and the Ministry of Justice refused to comment. A senior FBI official challenged the accounts of current and former officials saying: “This is not true.”
A former FBI official who knows that Driscoll said: “He pushed strong.”
Agents who worked on the cases of January 6 targeted
It is not known if someone other than the eight senior executives of the FBI was separated from the office. A familiar official with the case said the senior officials of the Trump administration clearly indicated that they wanted at least some of the FBI agents who continued the cases of January 6, just like several MJ prosecutors involved in the prosecution of January 6 were dismissed.
The official said that the Trump administration wanted this to happen quickly, but that FBI officials were informed by allegations of misconduct in the office involving an official examination process.
The stories of DRISCOLL’s actions have given new light on a chaotic series of events in the last 48 hours that have started with the news that the Trump administration sought to serve the best ranks of FBI career officials.
“Late this afternoon, I received a service note from the Vice-Procureur General by interim informed informed me that eight FBI senior executives must be dismissed by specific dates, unless these employees have retired to Advance, “wrote Driscoll. “I was personally in contact with each of these affected employees.”
He declared in the memo that he had also been responsible for providing the DoJ at noon on Tuesday a list of all the employees of the FBI involved in cases of riot of Capitol, as well as those involved in a case against a chief of Hamas .
No one contacted by NBC News had an idea of the interest of the new administration in the case of Hamas, but the emphasis on January 6 was clear. The Trump administration apparently considers that all cases of January 6 should not have been worn.
As it was the largest criminal investigation in the history of the United States, thousands of FBI members were involved, as Driscoll recognized in his memo.
“We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these efforts of investigation,” he wrote. “I am one of these employees, as is the acting assistant director (Rob) Kissane.”
FBI agents encouraged
FBI agents were encouraged by Driscoll’s memo, said a source, which many have seen as an attempt by Driscoll to make the labor market known and the public of what was asked to do.
“He was trying to do well by the labor market,” said a person familiar with the thoughts of agents at NBC News. “He puts it in writing and names names.”
A distinct memo of the MJ obtained by NBC News identified the employees who were forced to go out.
The list included four best FBI managers: Robert Wells, who supervised the National Security Directorate; Ryan Young, of the intelligence branch; Robert Nordwall, of the criminal response and cyber; Jackie Maguire, science and technology. All these people were eligible to retire and many of them did it.
The memo also identified two chiefs of cabinet, Jeffrey Veltri in Miami and David Sundberg in Washington, DC
Dena Perkins, an acting section chief of the security division, was also on the security division which was involved in a controversial disciplinary procedure against an FBI conservative agent.
The list did not include Spencer Evans, the special agent responsible to Las Vegas, who sent a message to his colleagues on Friday that he was dismissed by the FBI headquarters. “I had no justification for this decision, which, as you can imagine, came as a shock.” It is not known if he has now received a stay.
The list also did not include the executive assistant director Arlene Gaylord, a 33 -year -old FBI veteran who was not eligible for retirement and asked that she be authorized to work in another mission before she Don’t do it. An official of the FBI familiar with the case said that she had been accommodated.
Experts say that the layoffs are illegal
Legal experts have declared that little, if not, dismissals carried out so far by the Trump administration were legal under the laws on the public service because the employees were not proposed by a regular procedure.
Trump’s White House maintains, however, that the president has the absolute right to dismiss anyone he wants in the executive power. The Supreme Court has judged that federal employees have the right to hear before being disciplined or dismissed.
Joyce Vance, former American lawyer and legal contributor to NBC News, described illegal layoffs.
“Federal career employees can be dismissed for driving or performance problems, not because they have not shown political loyalty to the current holder of the White House,” said Vance. “Trump ignored the control of law and regulations to do this, and unless the Supreme Court changes their interpretation, any dismissal of permanent members of the public service should not stand.”
Even if some of the employees continue and win, they said that their public service career had been irreparably damaged, if not completed.
On Friday, one of the prosecutors of January 6 told NBC News on Friday that they had “done nothing wrong” and had no regrets on their work. The person, who asked not to appoint due to the fear of reprisals, said he was discouraging from being dismissed after seeing Trump forgive violent rioters who had attacked police.
“We all looked over our shoulders, like:” Is it the day we are going to be dismissed? ” Because we were doing our job? The prosecutor told NBC News. “We were forced to reject all the cases on which we work on all those people who were very violent offenders. It was horrible.
Current and former FBI agents say that the office purge had an overwhelming effect on morale, sending a message that agents working on cases that anger someone in the Trump administration could be targeted.
“Who at the moment wanted to work on a case that would allow them to pass them with the administration?” asked for a former FBI official. “They will come after you.”