FBI brass ‘stunned’ and ‘shell-shocked’ over Trump reelection
FBI brass 'stunned' and 'shell-shocked' over Donald Trump reelection - Washington Times
The brass on the seventh floor at
FBI headquarters in Washington are walking around in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since President-elect
Donald Trump won his reelection on Tuesday, according to inside sources.
The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior executives who run the agency were “stunned” and “shell-shocked” by Mr.
Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” the first
FBI source said, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr.
Trump is sworn into office, sources say.
FBI employees also recall when Mr.
Trump fired former
FBI Director James B. Comey in 2017, five months after the president was sworn in.
“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what
Trump did to Comey,” the first source said. “
Trump will say, ’Yeah, fire his ass. Don’t let him take the plane home,’” a reference to Mr. Comey finding out about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.
Mr.
Trump appointed Mr. Wray as
FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is for 10 years, but serving a full term depends on gaining the confidence of the president.
Others on the 7th floor of the
FBI are so concerned about their own jobs that they are likely to flood the Washington, D.C., private security job market, sources say.
According to most of the sources, no one in the
FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe from losing their job after Mr.
Trump is sworn in, and they fully expect the president-elect to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”
Former
FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the current state of the
FBI is “frazzled.”
“I have friends still at the Bureau telling me that no less than 50 Senior Executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said.
The Washington Times reached out to the
FBI for comment.
The
FBI and Mr.
Trump have a tense history, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign. Under Mr. Comey, the agency launched its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the
Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia in July 2016.
Mr.
Trump’s firing of Mr. Comey in 2017 raised suspicions in the Justice Department that the president was obstructing justice, leading to special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-running and costly probe, which eventually found no evidence that
Trump campaign officials conspired with or were connected to Moscow.
