The FBI’s 13,700 agents were supposed to respond by 3 p.m. Monday to a 12-question survey regarding what role, if any, they played in the Jan. 6 investigation.
The order came from Emil Bove, formerly a federal prosecutor and one of President Donald Trump’s criminal lawyers until his client appointed him acting deputy attorney general.
Bove has already pushed out eight top FBI officials, including one who was the case agent for 9/11. Trump and attorney general nominee Kash Patel have both disingenuously insisted they knew nothing about personnel changes at the bureau.
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“I wasn’t involved in that,” Trump told reporters. “I’ll have to see what is exactly going on after this is finished.”
“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel said in sworn testimony at his Senate confirmation hearing.
Bove initially wanted FBI acting Director Brian Driscoll to provide a list of all those who had participated in the 1,000–plus individual cases. Driscoll was supposed to have been the acting assistant director, but an Inauguration Day White House press release mistakenly switched his name with that of the intended acting director, Robert Kissane, according to The Wall Street Journal. Rather than admit and correct the error, the White House let it stand.
As an acting director by accident, Driscoll’s position was precarious enough that he might have been expected to simply comply. But Driscoll was still a stand-up FBI agent by whatever title, and he refused. Bove sought to assemble his own list by sending out the survey.
“We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts,” Driscoll said in a bureau-wide email. “I am one of those employees.”
The FBI Agents Association advised its members to comply and suggested a lawyerly reply to question #11.
“The responses in this survey are provided based upon my current knowledge, information and belief. I have been directed to respond to this survey in an extremely short timeframe and with minimal information. Furthermore, all the questions, except one, do not allow for any written explanation. I have been told I am ‘required to respond’ to this survey, without being afforded appropriate time to research my answers, speak with others, speak with counsel or other representation. I have not been advised if these answers are being provided for informational purposes, administrative inquiry, Security Division inquiry or criminal inquiry. I have not been advised of my rights in this matter. To the best of my ability and belief, I have performed my duties in accordance with the DIOG [FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide], federal statutes and the Constitution of the United States and the matters I worked on were properly predicated under DIOG and were opened and investigated at the direction of the Department of Justice.”
One knowledgeable source says that some 1,500 agents played significant roles in the Jan. 6 investigation, with another 5,000 assigned lesser tasks. All have reason to feel targeted for simply doing their jobs.
And, from his decade working with FBI agents as prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Bove knows that they do not just investigate whatever they feel like; they are assigned cases. An FBI official who worked with Bove back then describes him now as “formerly a good guy.”
“He did cases with me when he was in an AUSA [assistant U.S. attorney],” the official said. “We did undercover cases and terrorist plots and all that. You know, he was terrific to have around.”
But Bove went into private practice in 2022 and went on to become the in-person attorney who represented Trump in the virtual sentencing for the porn-star hush-money case in Manhattan Supreme Court. And he is now a top Department of Justice official, poised to do Trump’s bidding.
“Proximity to power, you know, can be a very strong elixir, even for the reasonable,” the official said. “They think, ‘Well, if I just bend towards these few little things—which then become bigger things and bigger things—I’ll become this powerful person, too.’ But at some point, you got to ask yourself, ‘What is it worth?’”
Bove did not hesitate to instill fear in decent FBI agents who embrace their work as a calling, are ever ready to place themselves in harm’s way, and routinely put in 60-hour weeks and go around the clock on big cases and have families and mortgages.
“Paranoia is running rampant, except it’s not really paranoia,” the official said of the survey’s effect on the agents. “And meanwhile, they’re supposed to be doing their jobs.”
The official recalled a chilling moment during then-FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee that he saw terrorist threats everywhere he turned.
The official now noted of the agents tasked with meeting those threats: ”At a time when the former director Chris Wray said, ‘All the lights are blinking red,’ who’s thinking about their case today? They’re staring at their form and their computer saying, ‘Do I check this box? Do I not check this box?’” In its Feb. 2 email to its members about the 12-question survey, the FBI Agents Association noted, “Adding insult to injury is that four years ago today, we lost two incredible FBI agents, Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, doing the meaningful, yet dangerous work that our members do every day.”
Alfin, 36 and, Schwartzenberger, a 43-year-old mother of two, were shot to death while serving a search warrant on a child porn suspect who opened fire with a high-powered rifle.
“We remember how dark and tragic that day was.,” the email continued. “Today, we continue to remember and honor them, their families, friends, and colleagues. While it is nearly impossible to block out the noise right now, we are reminded that like Dan and Laura, we do the jobs we do because it is a calling to protect and serve—and that we believe in protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution of the United States.”
