FBI agents and Secret Service Police officers patrol the Navy Yard neighborhood, after U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement to deploy the National Guard and federalize the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 12, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
When Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president on January 20, 2021, he had no problem with the fact that the then-FBI director, Christopher A. Wray, was a conservative Republican. Wray, in fact, continued to serve as FBI director throughout Biden's presidency.
But the post-Wray FBI has undergone major changes since President Donald Trump's return to the White House almost seven months ago. The bureau is now led by far-right MAGA Republicans and Trump loyalists, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.
In an article published by MSNBC on August 19, reporter Ken Dilanian details the reasons for all the frustration and chaos plaguing the FBI during Trump's second presidency.
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Patel, Dilanian reports, "is moving to reorder the agency's priorities with little input from Congress or the public."
"Current and former FBI officials tell MSNBC the changes are coming at the expense of the FBI's role protecting the U.S. from terrorists, hackers and spies — as well as its traditional missions of fighting white-collar fraud, public corruption and child sex crimes," Dilanian explains. "If more agents are working on violent crime cases as their total number is being reduced, these officials say, there won't be the manpower left to devote the same level of resources to national security and other threats."
Dilanian continues, "Multiple current and former FBI officials say they have already seen that happening over the past several months, as agents have been diverted to immigration enforcement and veterans with years of experience have left the bureau."
Retired FBI agent Rob D'Amico is highly critical of the bureau's direction under Patel.
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D'Amico told MSNBC, "This is putting the nation in jeopardy — they seem to be making national security threats secondary. They are effectively making the FBI a national police force. Who will address the missions the FBI has focused on for decades? There is no other entity that does them."
An FBI official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, finds that agents are becoming increasingly demoralized.
The agent told MSNBC, "Morale is low and people are stressed…. People are coming into (a senior colleague's) office in tears talking about how they are really uncomfortable with these orders and their supervisors are at a loss to help them."
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Ken Dilanian's full MSNBC article is available at this link.