Amid an ongoing campaign to rid the FBI of woke politics and priorities, the bureau has fired roughly 15 agents who were caught on camera kneeling during a 2020 protest following the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. In May of this year, the FBI reassigned the agents, but subsequently fired them, according to anonymous sources cited by the Associated Press and CNN. The kneeling agents were among a group of about 20 agents who were fired at the conclusion of a review by the FBI's general counsel office.
When photographs were published that showed a large group of agents taking a knee as they pandered to protesters in Washington, controversy erupted both inside and outside the FBI. Beyond the political dynamic, some senior FBI officials felt that the agents put themselves and peers at a tactical disadvantage. Here's how retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano summed up the ugly spectacle:
[There are] two possible, equally repugnant purposes behind the kneelers’ actions. The symbolic genuflection in the face of protesters (and the movement’s rioters who destroyed businesses and government buildings and claimed lives) was either an expression of unity with BLM, or these armed agents were blatant cowards and spinelessly acquiesced to the demands of a threatening mob. Whichever the reason, it is fully nauseating to career agents.
During the Biden administration and under then-Director Christopher Wray, the incident was reviewed with a conclusion that no policies had been violated. This year, the bureau decided to give it a second look. As a result, the agents were first reassigned to jobs that were perceived as demotions, but have now been jettisoned altogether.
In August, two senior FBI officials were fired: Brian Driscoll, who served as acting director before Kash Patel's confirmation, and Steve Jensen, who was acting director of the Washington Field Office (WFO). Both have sued, claiming they were victimized by a "campaign of retribution" targeting agents insufficiently loyal to President Trump. There may be many more terminations to come. The DOJ has said it is scrutinizing the actions of more than 1,500 agents involved in investigations of questionable merit, such as the prosecutions of members of Trump's first administration and the extraordinary effort mounted against participants in the January 6 riots.
This week, it was revealed that the FBI deployed a stunning 274 agents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6. The news was broken by Just The News, which obtained an after-action report that included rank-and-file agents' sharp criticism of the bureau in general and the Washington Field Office in particular. As one agent wrote, "WFO is a hopelessly broken office that's more concerned about wearing masks and recruiting preferred racial/sexual groups than catching actual bad guys."
The FBI Agents Association condemned the dismissals and criticized Patel's job performance. "Rather than providing these agents with fair treatment and due process, Patel chose to again violate the law by ignoring these agents’ constitutional and legal rights instead of following the requisite process," the group said in a statement. Others, however, are quite pleased:
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