Internal Emails Show FBI Agents Were Shocked and Shaken After Trump Fired Comey
Internal Emails Show FBI Agents Were Shocked and Shaken After Trump Fired Comey
CHARLES S. CLARK | FEBRUARY 5, 2018
http://www.govexec.com
Washington D.C.— A trove of internal FBI emails released over the weekend shows the dramatic impact President Trump’s firing of then director James Comey had on the bureau’s workforce last May. The messages portray agents deeply shocked and saddened by the news, and they contradict Trump’s description of a bureau “in tatters.”
The blog Lawfare, run by Brookings Institution government studies Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes, filed four Freedom of Information Act requests for the documents back in June. After the FBI delayed in answering, Wittes filed suit.
The resulting direct messages from special agents and field office heads show a reaction of “shock” and “profound sadness” at the removal of a “beloved figure to whom the workforce was deeply attached,” the blog said. “It also shows that no aspect of the White House’s statements about the bureau were accurate—and, indeed, that the White House engendered at least some resentment among the rank and file for whom it purported to speak.”
(Snip)
A former FBI counterterrorism analyst now with Lawfare had written similar impressions of bureau employee loyalty to Comey in June, based on talks with 20 ex-colleagues. “Complete shock, followed by deep sadness,” was the general reaction to the firing, she wrote.
Wittes writes that the FOIA request was aimed at establishing a factual basis for those impressions that differ from the message from the White House:
In an organization “in turmoil,” one run by a “nut job,” in whom the rank and file have “lost confidence,” one might expect such an email to have a celebratory flavor, to talk about how the long national nightmare is over, say, or how there's a great opportunity to restore sanity to the organization.
But in fact, the emails showed that “no aspect of the White House’s statements about the bureau were accurate—and, indeed, that the White House engendered at least some resentment among the rank and file for whom it purported to speak, Lawfare noted.
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http://m.govexec.com/management/2018/02/internal-emails-show-fbi-agents-were-shocked-and-shaken-after-trump-fired-comey/145735/
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