The FBI is being forced by Elon Musk’s DOGE to hand over the names of 5,000 officials who worked on January 6 cases.
Those officials could face being fired for failing the Trump ‘loyalty test’ being given to rank-and-file employees.
Officials working for Musk at DOGE were spotted by CNN entering FBI headquarters on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to collect the information.
FBI agents filed a lawsuit Tuesday trying to block the release of their names or identifying details after Trump administration officials demanded documents about who worked on January 6-related cases.
The agents say their jobs could be terminated within days.
The ‘loyalty’ test asks questions such as: ‘What was your/your employee role in the investigation(s) or prosecutions(s) relating to events that occurred at or near the US Capitol on January 6, 2021? Select all that apply.’
It then lists a series of boxes that includes investigatory work such as surveillance, a grand jury subpoena, or an arrest.
According to the lawsuit ‘the very act of compiling lists of persons who worked on matters that upset Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature.’
It said the move was ‘intended to intimidate FBI agents and other personnel, and to discourage them from reporting any future malfeasance and by Donald Trump and his agents.’
The group of agents warned of ‘unlawful and retaliatory’ actions against them, and said the information sweep could violate civil service protections.
Last week, several top FBI and Justice Department officials who were involved in Trump investigations were pushed out.
The Justice Department told the acting head of the FBI to hand over the names of all FBI employees who took part in January 6 cases
The firing of rank-and-file agents and the heads of 20 FBI field offices was announced on Friday as those who were fired were ‘escorted out.’
A source familiar said agents who worked on the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations were escorted out of the Washington Field Office.
The source added that officials in charge of the DC, Miami, Seattle, New Orleans and Las Vegas field offices were removed.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Richard Durbin of Illinois, has written acting AG James McHenry and Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll warning about a ‘purge’ of experienced prosecutors which has encompassed all six FBI Executive Assistant Directors.
Acting Deputy AG Emil Bove, who previously represented President Donald Trump in his hush money case, ordered the move in a January 31 memo.
Durbin’s letter says more than a dozen DOJ prosecutors were fired after getting a memo from McHenry stating: ‘Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.’
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FBI warns staff of 'battle' as Trump purges agents who investigated January 6 riots
Durbin also cites a letter by Bove to Acting FBI Director Driscoll – who was accidentally appointed to the top post but kept in place anyway.
Bove told him to ‘provide the names of all FBI personnel who worked on investigations related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and an unrelated terrorism case, and warned that “additional personnel actions” could follow.’
Driscoll himself, who has gained notoriety for putting up resistance to the request, told staff in a Friday memo that ‘I am one of those employees’ who took part in those cases.
Specifically, he played a role in the arrest of QAnon conspiracy theorist Samuel Fisher, who was found during a raid to have a ‘ghost gun,’ a thousand rounds of ammunition and an illegally modified AR-15.
The 5,000 names that the Trump administration is demanding reflects the wide reach of the January 6 prosecutions, which resulted in 1,500 convictions. Trump pardoned nearly all of the defendants on his first day in office.
They are part of a nationwide workforce of 13,000 agents and 38,000 total employees, CNN reported.
According to the lawsuit by a group of FBI employees, they ‘assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action.’
‘Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons.’
The FBI has complied with a demand to hand over the names of people who worked on January 6 cases, generating a list of 5,000. Trump pardoned all 1,500 people charged in connection with the Capitol riot
FBI employees were required to check boxes for activities such as taking part in arrests of January 6 suspects
The plaintiffs ‘are employees of the FBI who worked on Jan. 6 and/or Mar-a-Lago cases, and who have been informed that they are likely to be terminated in the very near future (the week of February 3-9, 2025) for such activity.’
The Mar-a-Lago case references the FBI search of Trump’s Florida club before he was charged with having national security information. DOJ dropped an appeal related to that case after Trump was elected in November.
The clash comes as agents for Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have been shifting their gaze to the agency – after shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development for two consecutive days amid a major purge.
A top FBI agent has warned that his workforce is in the midst of a ‘battle.’
James E Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, reportedly sent an email round in which he promised he would ‘dig in’ and said agents are being targeted for doing their jobs ‘in accordance with the law’.
Legal commentators have noted that lower-level agents and prosecutors routinely get assigned cases and are obliged to work on them. Some of the people convicted after January 6 engaged in violent clashes with police officers.