As Ousters Continue, F.B.I. Singles Out Employee Over Friendship With Trump Critic

New York Times

5 days ago

The F.B.I. has targeted another round of employees who ran afoul of conservatives, forcing out two veteran agents in Virginia — one of whom is friends with a critic of President Trump — and punishing another in Las Vegas, according to several people familiar with the matter.
Two of the men, Spencer Evans and Stanley Meador, are senior agents who ran F.B.I. field offices in Las Vegas and Richmond, Va. The third, Michael Feinberg, a top deputy in the Norfolk, Va., office, had ties to a former agent whom Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, identified in his book as part of the so-called deep state.
The moves add to the transfers, ousters and demotions that have rippled across the F.B.I. as Mr. Patel and Dan Bongino, his No. 2, promise to remake the country's premier law enforcement agency. The wave of changes, current and former agents say, amount to little more than retaliation, underscoring what they describe as the politicization of the F.B.I. as its leaders seek to mollify Mr. Trump's supporters.
Critics say Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino, who are clear about their loyalty to the president and lack the experience of their predecessors, are simply doing what they railed about for years under the previous administration: weaponizing the bureau. In a statement addressing his decision to step down, Mr. Feinberg denounced the agency as an organization that had begun 'to decay.'
The F.B.I. declined to comment.
The case of Mr. Feinberg appears to be another example of retribution, former officials said. In his statement, he said that in late May, he was threatened with an investigation and the possibility of a demotion because of his friendship with Peter Strzok, a longtime counterintelligence agent who was fired in 2018. 'I was informed that, because I maintain a friendship with a former F.B.I. executive who is a critic and perceived enemy of the current administration, I would not be receiving any of the promotions for which I was currently being considered, and that I should actually steel myself to be demoted,' he said.
Mr. Feinberg added that the F.B.I. had intended to have him take a polygraph, or a lie-detector test, about the nature of his ties to Mr. Strzok, which he said are entirely social.
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