FBI Director Kash Patel continued his purge Thursday of FBI agents and staff tied to the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office in 2021, firing at least a dozen agents across the country this week.
The first batch of firings came Wednesday afternoon, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. The firings occurred soon after Patel told Reuters in an interview that FBI investigators during the Biden administration obtained phone data for him and current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
The interview landed as Patel has been struggling to mitigate the political damage he incurred after videos emerged over the weekend of him drinking and partying with the U.S. men’s hockey team at the Olympics.
At least one more firing occurred Thursday, the people familiar with the matter said. Two of the people familiar said they expect more firings could be on their way.
The firings are the latest example of Patel pushing out experienced FBI agents because they worked on one of the two federal investigations into Trump: One case accused Trump of retaining classified information after he left the White House in 2021 and improperly storing it at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and another alleged that the president tried to thwart the results of the 2020 election.
Scores of agents have been fired since the start of the Trump administration. Some were heavily involved in the cases, others were scarcely involved, with roles like being part of the bureaucratic process used to sign off on subpoenas or warrants.
The latest firings included experts in counterespionage matters. It’s unclear if they were given a reason for their firings or if they were accused of wrongdoing.
“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records – along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” Patel said in a statement to Reuters.
It’s common practice for FBI agents to request phone records during investigations, and it’s not surprising that officials were interested in Patel. It has previously been reported that prosecutors investigating Trump had granted Patel limited immunity to appear before a grand jury.
Patel, an ardent Trump ally who served in his first administration, had said in media interviews that he knew Trump had declassified broad sets of sensitive records before he left office. Investigators wanted to know if Patel was lying to win over right-wing audiences — or whether he knew something that could be important to the case. Prosecutors later said that when put under oath, Patel backed back away from some of the statements he made on-air.
Investigators did not obtain details about what Patel and Wiles said in conversations with people on his phone, according to Patel’s interview with Reuters. They only obtained tolling records — metadata showing who Patel and Wiles contacted and when. Patel told Reuters that agents used subpoenas to obtain the records, which is standard protocol.
It has also long been known that investigators were interested in Wiles as a potential witness in the classified documents case. At the time, Wiles headed Trump’s Save America political action committee, and investigators had received a tip that Trump had shown Wiles a classified map when they were traveling on a plane together.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings, saying they violated the due process rights of agents and damaged the law enforcement agency.
Over the past year, multiple fired agents and leaders have filed lawsuits against the bureau, accusing Patel of firing them for unlawful and political reasons. The lawsuits provide a rare view into how politically appointed leaders have allegedly dismantled long-standing norms and have appeared determined to fire anyone whom they deem disloyal to the president.
“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk.”
Trump was charged in 2023 with 40 counts of illegally retaining classified defense information and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the materials. Two of Trump’s personal aides were charged with obstruction alongside him.
U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed those charges in a decision that broke with legal precedent, ruling that Smith was unlawfully appointed and therefore had no authority to bring charges. Her decision did not touch on the merits of the case, which Trump aides at the time believed was the stronger of the criminal cases against Trump that were brought during the Biden administration.
The Justice Department appealed that decision, but dropped the appeal after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, citing federal regulations that say a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
