Link: Archive
The brass on the seventh floor at FBI headquarters in Washington are walking around in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since President-elect Donald Trump won his reelection on Tuesday, according to inside sources.
The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior executives who run the agency were “stunned” and “shellshocked” by Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” the first FBI source said, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr. Trump is sworn into office, sources say.
FBI employees also recall when Mr. Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017, five months after the president was sworn in.
“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” the first source said. “Trump will say, ’Yeah, fire his ass. Don’t let him take the plane home,’” a reference to Mr. Comey finding out about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.
Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wray as FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is for 10 years, but serving a full term depends on gaining the confidence of the president.
Others on the 7th floor of the FBI are so concerned about their own jobs that they are likely to flood the Washington, D.C., private security job market, sources say.
According to most of the sources, no one in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe from losing their job after Mr. Trump is sworn in, and they fully expect the president-elect to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”
Former FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the current state of the FBI is “frazzled.”
“I have friends still at the Bureau telling me that no less than 50 Senior Executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said.
The Washington Times reached out to the FBI for comment.
The FBI and Mr. Trump have a tense history, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Under Mr. Comey, the agency launched its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in July 2016.
Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 raised suspicions in the Justice Department that the president was obstructing justice, leading to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly probe, which eventually found no evidence that Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.
A subsequent government watchdog investigation found that FBI officials made numerous errors or omissions in secret warrant applications for surveillance of a Trump campaign aide.
More recently, The Washington Times exclusively reported about an FBI whistleblower’s protected disclosure to Congress that alleged Mr. Comey launched an off-the-books undercover criminal investigation against Mr. Trump after he began his first campaign in June 2015. The operation was not predicated on any particular case nor had any connection to Russia.
Mr. Trump also clashed with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired in 2018 hours before his retirement. Mr. McCabe went on to become a cable news analyst who was highly critical of Mr. Trump.
In August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida and seized documents, leading to criminal charges against him of mishandling classified materials. That prosecution is now in jeopardy due to Mr. Trump’s reelection.
Many at the FBI remembered when Chief of Border Patrol Mark Morgan, a longtime FBI official, resigned six months into 2017 after Mr. Trump was sworn in. Mr. Trump later hired him to head up Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Additionally, many on the 7th floor of the FBI are concerned about billionaire tech executive Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, being brought into the Trump administration as head of a government efficiency commission.
“When he tries to do efficiency at headquarters, the place is going to have five people … if he’s talking about a lot of dead weight,” a second FBI source said.
“Try to find a person that’s actually working,” the source said. “That may be the biggest problem there—that there’s no efficiency. So that’s actually the bigger threat. If you’re going to try to make the government efficient, you would start with the FBI, because if you do politics all the time, you’re probably bloated.”
FBI agents spent much of their time during the Biden administration seeking out, investigating and arresting Jan. 6 defendants, whom Mr. Trump has pledged to pardon at the beginning of his second term.
A third FBI source said some bureau personnel who are tired of the Jan. 6 investigations are amused “at the fact that Trump [likely] pardons everybody involved Jan. 6.”
The brass on the seventh floor at FBI headquarters in Washington are walking around in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since President-elect Donald Trump won his reelection on Tuesday, according to inside sources.
The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior executives who run the agency were “stunned” and “shellshocked” by Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” the first FBI source said, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr. Trump is sworn into office, sources say.
FBI employees also recall when Mr. Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017, five months after the president was sworn in.
“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” the first source said. “Trump will say, ’Yeah, fire his ass. Don’t let him take the plane home,’” a reference to Mr. Comey finding out about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.
Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wray as FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is for 10 years, but serving a full term depends on gaining the confidence of the president.
Others on the 7th floor of the FBI are so concerned about their own jobs that they are likely to flood the Washington, D.C., private security job market, sources say.
According to most of the sources, no one in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe from losing their job after Mr. Trump is sworn in, and they fully expect the president-elect to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”
Former FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the current state of the FBI is “frazzled.”
“I have friends still at the Bureau telling me that no less than 50 Senior Executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said.
The Washington Times reached out to the FBI for comment.
The FBI and Mr. Trump have a tense history, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Under Mr. Comey, the agency launched its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in July 2016.
Mr. Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 raised suspicions in the Justice Department that the president was obstructing justice, leading to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly probe, which eventually found no evidence that Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.
A subsequent government watchdog investigation found that FBI officials made numerous errors or omissions in secret warrant applications for surveillance of a Trump campaign aide.
More recently, The Washington Times exclusively reported about an FBI whistleblower’s protected disclosure to Congress that alleged Mr. Comey launched an off-the-books undercover criminal investigation against Mr. Trump after he began his first campaign in June 2015. The operation was not predicated on any particular case nor had any connection to Russia.
Mr. Trump also clashed with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired in 2018 hours before his retirement. Mr. McCabe went on to become a cable news analyst who was highly critical of Mr. Trump.
In August 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida and seized documents, leading to criminal charges against him of mishandling classified materials. That prosecution is now in jeopardy due to Mr. Trump’s reelection.
Many at the FBI remembered when Chief of Border Patrol Mark Morgan, a longtime FBI official, resigned six months into 2017 after Mr. Trump was sworn in. Mr. Trump later hired him to head up Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Additionally, many on the 7th floor of the FBI are concerned about billionaire tech executive Elon Musk, owner of X and Tesla, being brought into the Trump administration as head of a government efficiency commission.
“When he tries to do efficiency at headquarters, the place is going to have five people … if he’s talking about a lot of dead weight,” a second FBI source said.
“Try to find a person that’s actually working,” the source said. “That may be the biggest problem there—that there’s no efficiency. So that’s actually the bigger threat. If you’re going to try to make the government efficient, you would start with the FBI, because if you do politics all the time, you’re probably bloated.”
FBI agents spent much of their time during the Biden administration seeking out, investigating and arresting Jan. 6 defendants, whom Mr. Trump has pledged to pardon at the beginning of his second term.
A third FBI source said some bureau personnel who are tired of the Jan. 6 investigations are amused “at the fact that Trump [likely] pardons everybody involved Jan. 6.”
