Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll on Friday refused a Justice Department order that he assist in the firing of agents involved in Jan. 6 riot cases, pushing back so forcefully that some FBI officials feared he would be dismissed, multiple current and former FBI officials told NBC News.
The Justice Department ultimately did not dismiss Driscoll. He sent out a memo to the workforce Friday night explaining that he had been ordered to remove eight senior FBI executives and turn over the names of every FBI employee involved in Capitol riot cases.
The eight executives have been forced out but Driscoll did not say in the memo whether he would turn over the broader list of Jan. 6-related names — a list that he noted encompasses thousands of FBI employees, including him.
“As we’ve said since the moment we agreed to take on these roles, we are going to follow the law, follow FBI policy, and do what’s in the best interest of the workforce and the American people — always,” Driscoll, a former member of the FBI’s elite hostage rescue team, wrote.
In a message that circulated widely among bureau personnel, an FBI agent summarized what happened as: “Bottom line — DOJ came over and wanted to fire a bunch of J6 agents. Driscoll is an absolute stud. Held his ground and told WH proxy, DOJ, to F— Off.”
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. A senior FBI official disputed the accounts of the current and former officials saying, “It’s not true.”
A former FBI official who knows Driscoll well said, “He pushed back hard.”
Agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases targeted
It’s not known whether anyone other than the eight senior FBI executives have been separated from the bureau. One official familiar with the matter said that top Trump administration officials have made it clear that they want at least some of the FBI agents who pursued Jan. 6 cases to be fired, just as multiple DOJ prosecutors involved with the Jan. 6 prosecutions were fired.
The official said the Trump administration wants this to happen quickly but has been told by FBI officials that misconduct allegations at the bureau involve a formal review process.
The accounts of Driscoll’s actions shed new light on a chaotic series of events over the last 48 hours that began with the news that the Trump administration was seeking to purge the top ranks of the FBI’s career civil servants.
“Late this afternoon, I received a memo from the acting Deputy Attorney General notifying me that eight senior FBI executives are to be terminated by specific dates, unless these employees have retired beforehand,” Driscoll wrote. “I have been personally in touch with each of these impacted employees.”
He said in the memo that he had also been directed to provide the DOJ by noon on Tuesday a list of all FBI employees involved in Capitol riot cases, and also those involved in a case against a Hamas leader.
No one contacted by NBC News had a sense of the new administration’s interest in the Hamas case, but the focus on Jan. 6 was clear. The Trump administration apparently believes that all of the Jan. 6 cases should not have been brought.
Since it was the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history, thousands of FBI personnel were involved, as Driscoll acknowledged in his memo.
“We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts,” he wrote. “I am one of those employees, as is acting Deputy Director (Rob) Kissane.”
FBI agents encouraged
FBI agents were heartened by Driscoll’s memo, a source said, which many saw as an attempt by Driscoll to make the workforce and the public aware of what he was being asked to do.
“He was trying to do right by the workforce,” one person familiar with the thinking of agents told NBC News. “He’s putting it in writing and naming names.”
A separate DOJ memo obtained by NBC News identified the employees who were forced out.
The list included four top FBI managers: Robert Wells, who oversaw the national security branch; Ryan Young, of the intelligence branch; Robert Nordwall, of criminal and cyber response; Jackie Maguire, of science and technology. All of those people were eligible to retire and many of them did so.
The memo also identified two heads of field offices, Jeffrey Veltri in Miami and David Sundberg in Washington, D.C.
Also on the list was Dena Perkins, an acting section chief in the security division who was involved in a controversial disciplinary proceeding against a conservative FBI agent.
The list did not include Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge in Las Vegas, who sent a message to colleagues on Friday that he was being dismissed by FBI headquarters. “I was given no rationale for this decision, which, as you might imagine, has come as a shock.” It’s unclear whether he has now been given a reprieve.
Nor did the list include executive assistant director Arlene Gaylord, a 33-year FBI veteran who was not retirement-eligible and requested that she be allowed to work in another assignment until she did so. An FBI official familiar with the matter said she had been accommodated.
Experts say the firings are illegal
Legal experts said that few, if any, of the firings carried out so far by the Trump administration have been legal under civil service laws because the employees were not afforded due process.
The Trump White House argues, though, that the president has the absolute right to fire anyone he wishes in the executive branch. The Supreme Court has ruled that federal employees have a right to a hearing before they are disciplined or terminated.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News legal contributor, called the firings illegal.
“Career federal employees can be fired for conduct or performance issues, not because they failed to demonstrate political loyalty to the current incumbent of the White House,” said Vance. “Trump ignored controlling law and regulations to do this, and unless the Supreme Court changes their interpretation, any firing of permanent members of the civil service should not stand.”
Even if some of the employees sue and win, they said their public service careers have been irreparably damaged, if not ended.
One of the Jan. 6 prosecutors fired on Friday told NBC News that they “did nothing wrong” and had no regrets about their work. The person, who asked not to named due to fear of retaliation, said it was discouraging to be fired after seeing Trump pardon violent rioters who attacked police officers.
“We’ve all been looking over our shoulders, like, ‘Is this the day that we’re gonna get fired?’ Because we were doing our jobs?” the fired prosecutor told NBC News. “We’ve been forced to dismiss all of the cases that we’ve been working on of all these people that were very violent offenders. It’s been awful.”
Current and former FBI agents say the purge at the bureau has had a shattering effect on the morale, sending a message that agents who work on cases that anger someone in the Trump administration could be targeted.
“Who right now would want to work on a case that would get them crosswise with the administration?” one former FBI official asked. “They will come after you.”
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