FBI Director Kash Patel has fired additional agents who worked on investigations involving President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel decisions publicly. The latest terminations included employees who participated in the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, AP reported.
AP said the firings were part of a broader personnel purge inside the FBI, led by Patel, a Trump appointee. People familiar with the matter told AP that Patel has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or were seen as not aligned with the administration’s agenda, and that the Justice Department has carried out similar sweeping prosecutor firings since Trump took office last year.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings in a statement, saying they were unlawful and endangering national security. The association said the bureau’s capability would suffer because the changes strip away expertise, destabilize the workforce, undermine trust in leadership, and could jeopardize recruiting goals, according to the statement AP attributed to the association.
AP reported that the latest round of terminations included employees who helped investigate the Mar-a-Lago classified records matter, a case that involved a high-profile FBI search of the Florida property and later resulted in federal prosecution. The AP account said the prosecution charged Trump in connection with holding on to top-secret records from his first term and obstructing government efforts to recover them.
In AP’s reporting, multiple people familiar with the matter confirmed the firings to the wire service and said the total number of employees terminated was 10 or more. Several people told AP that the figure was 10, while one said at least 10 were fired.
AP also reported that the FBI fired agents who participated in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That investigation led to criminal charges, AP said, but was later abandoned by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the White House in November 2024, citing longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that bar indictment of sitting presidents.
The firings were reported by AP on the same day Reuters quoted Patel as telling the news agency that the FBI during the Biden administration had subpoenaed his phone records and those of current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. AP reported that Patel said the subpoenas occurred in 2022 and 2023 when he and Wiles were private citizens, and that Patel had been subpoenaed in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in connection with the Mar-a-Lago investigation after he was given immunity, AP previously reported.