WASHINGTON — Several top FBI executives promoted by former Director Christopher Wray were told Thursday to resign or retire or they would be fired, according to multiple current and former bureau officials.
The purge of senior officials includes about a half-dozen “executive assistant directors,” who are some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. They are career civil servants, meaning they can’t be fired without cause.
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Also targeted were at least two heads of field offices in Miami and Las Vegas, the sources said.
“I was informed by FBIHQ today that the executive leadership at the Department of Justice plans to dismiss me from the rolls of the FBI, along with several other FBI executives, as soon as Monday Morning,” Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas field office, said in a note obtained by NBC News. “I was given no rationale for this decision, which, as you might imagine, has come as a shock.”
NBC News previously reported that the officials had been offered the prospect of a demotion or re-assignment, but has since learned that was not the case in most instances.
A current FBI official told NBC News that the move would be “hugely disruptive,” while a former official who is talking to people at the FBI said there’s a lot of anger because the affected employees aren’t considered political figures in any way.
The FBI declined to comment on the personnel moves, which were first reported by CNN.
Wray, whom President Donald Trump appointed to his 10-year post in 2017, resigned at the end of the Biden administration.
The moves at the FBI come amid a wave of terminations in the first 10 days of the Trump administration.
Trump fired 18 inspectors general last week, including watchdogs for the State, Defense and Labor departments and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump defended the firings, saying, “Some were unfair or were not doing the job.”
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The Trump administration has also fired career attorneys at the Justice Department who were involved in prosecuting him, raising alarms over his making good on threats of retribution against those who have challenged his conduct.
Trump has picked Kash Patel to lead the FBI in his second term. Patel said at a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday that if he is confirmed the FBI won’t take retributive action.
Ken Dilanian reported from Washington and Zoë Richards from New York.
