The 'Purge'
Trump's FBI shakeup: A move for reform, retribution, or something else?
NBC News: “There’s a purge going on.”
The Guardian: “FBI launches sweeping staff cuts as Trump seeks to purge career officials.”
The Washington Times: “FBI purge: 20+ top officials ousted in sweeping shakeup.”
The media has quickly settled on a word to describe the Trump administration’s widely anticipated shakeup of the FBI: purge.
There’s still much we don’t know, and undoubtedly more changes to come, but the timing of these firings is notable — they began as Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI director, faced questions in his Senate confirmation hearing.
At the very least, two things seem inevitable:
The era of the “nonpartisan” FBI director, serving presidents of both parties for a fixed 10-year term, is over. Any future Democratic president will almost certainly remove Patel — or whomever Trump manages to install.
The FBI is on the verge of a transformation. As Trump’s allies reshape the bureau, it will become increasingly leaky, feeding media coverage of its internal power struggles. This marks a departure from decades of carefully crafted mystique, long reinforced by Hollywood’s polished portrayal of the agency.
Republicans will call these changes “reform.” Democrats will call them “weaponization.” Both will likely be right — at different times. That’s why the evolving story of the FBI in the coming years will be fascinating: a real-life drama of power, politics, and intrigue.
Kash Patel and Warrantless Surveillance
Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing played out as expected — a partisan battle over one of Trump’s most controversial allies. Democrats grilled Patel on his history of promoting conspiracy theories (and supplements) and his past attacks on the agency he’s now nominated to lead.
A key focus of questioning was Patel’s past statements, including his suggestion that Congress should defund the FBI until it complied with document requests. He downplayed his previous rhetoric, insisting he would work to restore public trust in the bureau and ensure its neutrality.
At one point, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, asked Patel to respond to comments he made during a September 2024 appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show, a conservative podcast:
“The biggest problem the FBI has had has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Klobuchar treated this as a disqualifying statement. But as I’ve written before, Patel’s remark — while intentionally provocative — wasn’t entirely off base. The FBI’s intelligence branch has been responsible for more post-9/11 scandals than any other part of the bureau. It’s reasonable to wonder whether Patel could be a reformer.
But then came a real test: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Section 702 allows the NSA to collect vast amounts of data, including on Americans, without a warrant. The FBI has repeatedly abused access to this data, mining it for investigations and then concealing its use from courts — a practice known as “parallel construction.” Just last week, a federal judge ruled that Section 702 surveillance is unconstitutional.
Given Patel’s prior criticisms of the FBI’s intelligence operations, it would have been logical to assume he might advocate for reforming 702 abuses. But when asked whether federal law enforcement officials should need a warrant to search 702 data, Patel responded:
“Having a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comported with the requirement to protect American citizens. It’s almost impossible to make that function and serve the national, no-fail mission.”
In other words, Patel leaned into the same argument used for years by law enforcement and intelligence officials: This data is so vital to national security that the Fourth Amendment shouldn’t apply.
For more on the debate about whether Patel will reform or weaponize the bureau, I refer you back to what I wrote a few weeks ago.
Details of the ‘Purge’
As Patel testified before the Senate, senior FBI officials were told to resign or be fired.
Despite some effort, I haven’t yet obtained a full list of affected officials, but two sources inside the bureau told me that most of those targeted appear to have been promoted under former FBI Director Christopher Wray — some as recently as days before Trump took office. The last-minute promotions were widely seen inside the FBI as an attempt to insulate the bureau from Trump’s influence.
The so-called purge claimed the heads of major field offices, including Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, and Las Vegas — positions known as Special Agents in Charge.
Some of those removed were viewed as adversarial to Trump, including Jeffrey Veltri, who led the Miami field office overseeing a vast region from the Florida Keys to Fort Pierce. Veltri had overseen the investigation into the second attempt on Trump’s life, after which Trump’s supporters amplified whistleblower claims that he had posted anti-Trump rhetoric on social media — allegations the bureau dismissed at the time as “demonstrably false.”
Others appeared to be part of Wray’s eleventh-hour defensive maneuvering. Less than a week before Trump took the oath of office for the second time, for example, Wray promoted Lyonel Myrthil to lead the New Orleans office. He was among those dismissed last week.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that the Trump administration “plans to scrutinize scores of FBI agents involved in Trump-related investigations,” setting the stage for yet another — wait for it — “purge.”
Coming Soon: Listen to ‘Into the Madness’ (for Free!)
Last week, I announced that my new Audible documentary series, “Into the Madness,” will premiere on February 20.
“Into the Madness” investigates the events leading up to a mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade outside Chicago, using them as a lens to examine America’s conspiracy-brained culture — especially the tangle of FBI conspiracy theories, which, uh, well …
As a reminder, newsletter subscribers can receive a code to listen to the series — while supplies last. If you’d like to receive a code to listen to the entire series for free (no Audible subscription required), fill out this request form. Codes will be sent via email in late February or early March.