FBI Purge VERY BAD. That's It, That's The Headline.
My, this fascism is happening very fast!
Friday night, the Justice Department, under acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove and acting DC US attorney Ed Martin, attempted to make with a mass purge of FBI field directors and agents suspected of committing thoughtcrimes against Donald Trump and his poop-smearing paramilitary force of rioters, who are hereby from now on officially known as the sweetest most innocent people to ever walk the earth.
Bove — you may remember him as Trump’s Batboy looking personal lawyer — instructed acting FBI Director and head of the Newark field office Brian Driscoll to terminate eight executives, including David Sundberg, the assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office; the Capitol breach prosecution unit and its chief, Gregg Rosen; and the heads of other field offices including Miami and Las Vegas. They are all career civil servants, meaning they can't be fired without cause and a whole process, opportunity to appeal, and so on.
Also, FBI agents don’t get to choose what they work on.
Also, many of these investigations started in the two weeks that Trump was still president and claiming the rioters were a bunch of ANTIFAs.
But none of this matters anymore!
The category “people who worked on the January 6 investigations” is a huge one; it was the largest investigation in American history and the FBI conducted about 2,400 investigations related to the attack. So these firings could potentially make up a sizable chunk of the 38,000-person workforce (as many as 6,000, says the FBI) and most of the DC office. How convenient for politicians who are planning to crime there!
Martin and Bove gave the remaining FBI agents until 5 p.m. Tuesday to self-confess the sin of doing their jobs on a questionnaire that Bove says will root out “subversives,” oh how very Stalin! The questionnaire demands to know if they played any kind of role in any January 6 cases by acting as an agent, providing management support, collecting data, arresting anyone, conducting interviews, participating in search warrants, testifying in court or appearing before a grand jury. In other words, if they did the jobs that they would have been fired from if they hadn’t. Throwing themselves on the ground and self-immolating at the deep injustice being done to God’s chosen baby lamb Trump was the only right answer, apparently.
Nobody said fascism was fair!
Supervisors also reportedly told agents to prepare for the White House to publicly release the names of the agents who worked on the two Trump criminal cases, presumably so Trump goons can make their lives miserable with doxxing and death threats.
However, the FBI is pushing back. The FBI Agents Association told members in an email obtained by CNN, “Do NOT resign or offer to resign. While we would never advocate for physical non-compliance, you need to be clear your removal is not voluntary.”
Acting FBI director Brian Driscoll refused to participate in the firings, and Robert C. Kissane, the acting deputy director, told employees they were not required to fill out Bove’s bullshit questionnaire. And assistant director in charge of the New York office James Dennehy emailed his staff a heartening letter that he was not quitting. Because the F-Bee-fuckin-I knows what the law is, even if Bove and Martin seem confused!
I still remember the first time I dug a foxhole in the Marines, back in 1993. I had nothing more than an E-tool (entrenching tool) that I carried around everywhere, which was a mini (2-foot long) shovel. I dug with that damn thing all day long to build myself a 2-foot by 2-foot hole in the hard ground, about five feet deep. It sucked. But it worked. That foxhole provided me the protection I needed for the battle that was to come, and when the bullets flew, it was worth the effort.
Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the FBI and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy. On a day like today, I find myself searching for my old E-tool, ready to put in the sweat and effort to dig that foxhole, as I have that feeling that I need to do right by this office.
I will support each and every one of you with whatever personal decision you make, but I’m sticking around to defend you, your work, your families, and this team we call the Flagship.
Time for me to dig in.
So, your move now, Oil of Bove and Mr. Ed.
This purge attempt comes after last Monday’s prosecutor purge, in which more than a dozen at the US attorney’s office in DC who had worked on January 6 cases were told to leave or get fired. And then on Friday 30 more were let go, on top of the firing of former special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
All that was even going down at the very same time grifter, children’s book author, pal to Nazis and conspiracy-theory kook Kash Patel was sitting in his confirmation hearing on Thursday, claiming that he wouldn’t politicize the FBI, and that he didn’t agree with pardoning the rioters. Because MAGA thinks it is hilarious to lie to people’s faces and get away with it, they’ve got real boners for that!
Wouldn’t it be nice if the disgustingness of all this kept Patel from getting confirmed? (BTW Trump Media just gave $780k of stock to Patel for serving on the board, holy conflict of interest! Ha ha, do those even exist anymore?)
But the interim people may not be much better. DC US attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. is a real kook himself, a Stop-The-Stealer who was on the board of a group that raised money for January 6 defendants, and defense attorney for three of them, including a Kansas City Proud Boys leader who pleaded guilty to assaulting police with an ax handle.
Well, let’s hope the FBI wins this showdown against these criminal idiots! We sure are fucked if they don’t! And probably also still fucked if they do!
SIGH.
[The Atlantic / Washington Post archive link / New York Times archive link / CNN]
OT Ontario had a deal to use Starlink (Muskco) to provide rural customers with subsidized internet service. $100 mil contract has been shitcanned today.
Yes, make it *very clear* that this is all a pretextual attempt to fire people for doing their jobs because Mad Lord Yam doesn't like the job that they did. Same as over at Department of Education and the Treasury. Sound the alarm loudly and often.