FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/trump-fbi-revenge-firings/681538/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

25 comments

  1. Seasoned members of the nation’s top law-enforcement agency are bracing for a mass expulsion as President Donald Trump roots out anyone he sees as disloyal to him, Shane Harris reports: [https://theatln.tc/iwfWmI1K](https://theatln.tc/iwfWmI1K)

    A team that investigated Trump’s mishandling of classified documents was expected to be fired, four people familiar with the matter said. David Sundberg, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, is also being fired, these people added. “Sundberg is a career FBI agent with more than two decades of experience, and he oversees some of the bureau’s most sensitive cases related to national security and counterintelligence,” Harris writes. “Current and former officials told me they are worried that those investigations could stall, at least temporarily, if a large number of agents are suddenly removed.”

    The purge may not be limited to those who investigated Trump personally. Administration officials are also seeking to identify FBI personnel who participated in investigations of the January 6 assault on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters, people familiar with the matter told Harris. That could potentially involve hundreds if not thousands of agents.

    Trump’s efforts to root out his supposed enemies might not withstand a legal challenge: FBI agents are protected by civil-service rules and do not choose the cases assigned to them.

    The mass firings could imperil the nomination of Kash Patel, whom Trump wants to lead the bureau. “Just yesterday, Patel had assured senators during his confirmation hearing that the very kinds of politically motivated firings that appear to be in motion would not happen,” Harris writes.

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/iwfWmI1K](https://theatln.tc/iwfWmI1K)

  2. The FBI cracked down hard on those members of its ranks who were investigating Trump and his cronies.

    Guess what that loyalty got them?

    Fuck em all.

  4. It’s going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money to pay for the lawsuits that come from this.

  7. When are people going to stop being “shocked” and “stunned”?

  8. Then they should all be fired, because these fuckers published their plans in a giant 900 page book *years* ago, and gave every indication they intended to follow it.

  9. The FBI contributed significantly to Hillary Clinton’s “loss” in 2016, by creating a fake story about new emails right before the election.

  10. I know it’s a joke about our intelligence agencies having no intelligence, but come on, guys. Come on.

  11. Absolutely no one should be shocked, especially the people who voted for him. Trump ran a campaign on hate and misinformation, but was extremely transparent with what he was going to do.

    Seriously, the audacity to be shocked.

  12. It’s a coup. I don’t know how else to say it, but that is what this all is.

  13. I hope that the FBI begins to leak like sieve. Also, that enough of them remaining can set up some kind of resistance and undermining of his more egregious policies and actions.

    Otherwise it will become a tool for security crackdowns and repression in support of fascism alongside ICE and Homeland Security.

  15. This would be comical if Trump didn’t want a real-life Purge movie scenario so he can get away with murdering people.

  16. Dictator Who Says He Would Act Like King Acts Like King, Everyone Surprised

  17. FBI agents should be organized and going to arrest the fascist dictator. Or just stand there like the moron from Austin powers watching the steam roller coming from 10 miles away and yelling “NO!!!”

    Wake the fuck up. If a felon is acting like a dictator and erasing all his crimes while firing all that investigated him. Lock his obvious criminal ass up. Do your damn jobs.

    Edit: I would stand by actual FBI agents that took a stand.

  19. Hey, FBI: now is a good time to go scorched earth on this pustule

  20. For those in the services with a shred of moral integrity….”All enemies foreign and Domestic”.

  21. So the intelligence community is filled with dumbfucks? He fucking ANNOUNCED he would do this shit.

  22. If the military and intelligence agencies have any concern for “national security” this is the fucking moment and the most dangerous threat we’ve ever faced as a nation. Idk how obvious it needs to be. They are actively reforming the government against all procedures, laws, agencies, and precedent, to suit their desires and needs. Is there no protocol for something like this? Like, what the actual fuck. This is literally what people like me have been warning everyone about for almost a fucking decade and here it is, and people are shocked

  23. How did the FBI, who investigates national threat, not see this coming. We just witnessed a coup happen before our eyes.

  25. Maybe the FBI should grow some balls and arrest Trump, Vance, Musk, and their security teams, and take them to a secret black site for a lifetime of creative tortures.

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