Trump’s 'swift, far-reaching expulsions' creating total 'chaos' at FBI and DOJ

06 February

President Donald Trump is hoping to give the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including the FBI, a full-fledged MAGA makeover by purging it of non-loyalists. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, now heads the DOJ — and far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Kash Patel appears to be on track to be confirmed as FBI director by the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate.

In an article published on February 5, Wall Street Journal reporters Sadie Gurman, C. Ryan Barber and Aruna Viswanatha emphasize that far-reaching expulsions are creating major "chaos" at the FBI and the DOJ.

"Two weeks into Trump's second term," the WSJ journalists explain, "the president and his team have moved quickly to gut aid programs, kill diversity initiatives and push out civil servants by the thousands. At the Justice Department and FBI, the expulsions have been swift and far-reaching, targeting investigators and prosecutors involved in the Trump probes. More than two dozen senior career officials across both agencies and dozens more prosecutors have already been pushed out."

Gurman, Barber and Viswanatha added, "The Trump Administration has set about compiling lists of thousands of others it will review, sparking fears that many more could be fired."

The FBI is presently led by Acting Director Brian Driscoll following the resignation of ex-Director Christopher Wray, who — knowing that Trump planned to fire him — left during the final days of the Biden Administration. Driscoll will be replaced by Patel if Trump's nominee is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

"The daily threat briefing for senior FBI leaders has been scaled back," Gurman, Barber and Viswanatha report, "and for the first time in years, an official from the cyber team had, for several days, nothing to report, giving the impression work had stalled."

Patel, according to the WSJ reporters, "is expected to shrink the Bureau's counterintelligence and counterterrorism work."

"On January 20, Trump’s first day in office," Gurman, Barber and Viswanatha note, "the president signed an executive order to investigate the Biden Administration's alleged 'weaponization of prosecutorial power'…. More than a dozen federal prosecutors who had worked on Trump investigations received an e-mail on January 27 saying they were fired because they couldn't be trusted to carry out the president's agenda. One prosecutor was escorted to his desk to retrieve personal belongings, barred from even sending a goodbye e-mail to colleagues."

Read the Wall Street Journal's full report at this link (subscription required).

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