FBI Shares Details on 5,000 Employees Involved in the January 6 Cases with Justice Department

The FBI has transmitted information about over 5,000 employees to the Justice Department who worked on investigations related to the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot. This move by the FBI is raising concerns with the workers within the agency because it is thought to be an action toward releasing employees involved in cases related to Donald Trump.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove issued a memo last Friday demanding that the FBI provide details on thousands of agents and analysts. The memo included a deadline for the FBI to submit the details by Tuesday. Bove had already ordered the dismissal of eight senior FBI officials in charge of important investigations.

There was information given here about employee identification numbers, jobs, and functions in the investigations of January 6, but no names were given. There are more than 13,000 agents with the FBI as well as more than 38,000 employees total.

Officials associated with Elon Musk have recently been spotted around FBI headquarters to work with the new Department of Government Efficiency started by Trump.

This has led some agents to sue the Justice Department, saying they are violating their rights and privacy laws. The move is said to be punitive and intimidating to the FBI agents for having taken part in investigations regarding Trump.

The officers were required to answer questionnaires on their participation in January 6 investigations, whether they arrested anyone, took part in investigating grand juries, or testified in court.

Several anonymous FBI employees have filed a class-action lawsuit. They claim that this process is retaliatory and is aimed at discouraging them from doing their jobs.

The process to terminate the affected employees has also been hamstrung by objections from FBI officials, who believe they would become political targets themselves. Several FBI agents are engaging with newly minted Trump appointees, like Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, who committed that no actions would be taken against the employees for their actions on the so-called Trump files.
Bove’s memo delineated a vetting process whose outcome would involve further steps taken against the affected FBI employees.

Many FBI employees, who have long expected changes under Trump, are surprised by these efforts to punish agents who had no choice in which cases they were assigned. The Justice Department recently fired more than a dozen officials involved in investigations into Trump.

The FBI in the recent past has received criticisms about management growth and cases channeled through Washington, DC. Some of the agents, for instance, expressed concern on the heavy approach in dealing with the Capitol riot but the recent move to throw agents out came as a surprise to many.

An association that represented law officers petitioned to prevent Trump from relieving them from their office of FBI staff that have stayed in the system for years.

In a separate issue, the FBI agents and lawyers are warning that firing the employees who handled the Trump-related cases would violate their due process rights. They say they will take action against such a move.

The lawyers of agents also feared that, if their names are disclosed, they may be exposed to harassment online, or even dangerous threats. In another case, some employees’ identities had recently been allowed to remain private while filing their lawsuits against Trump’s administration; the judge cited safety concerns.
This case is still pending, and another judge may revisit the employees’ anonymity decision.