FBI agents' association 'optimistic' about AG Bondi despite early controversy with Trump administration

FIRST ON FOX: The caput of the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) is cautiously optimistic that recently minted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi volition dependable the vessel astatine the Department of Justice (DOJ) aft turbulent weeks since President Donald Trump took office.

FBIAA president and CEO Nicole Campa told Fox News Digital successful an interrogation this week that she is anxious to spot if Bondi volition marque bully connected her pledge to extremity governmental weaponization astatine the FBI and the Justice Department. 

This caller enactment could trim immoderate of the vigor agents person felt successful caller weeks, she said, citing firings and forced departures of immoderate unit – arsenic good arsenic a questionnaire requiring agents to item their roles successful the Jan. 6 investigation. 

Campa pointed specifically to Bondi's vows to not spell aft Trump opponents oregon pursuit down immoderate alleged "enemies lists," 2 promises Bondi cited repeatedly past period during her confirmation hearing.

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Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump's lawyer wide nominee, listens during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation proceeding connected Wednesday, Jan 15, 2025. (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post/ Getty)

"I'm optimistic astir her statements moving forward, successful that she has stated that radical would not beryllium targeted for simply doing their job," Campa said. "So I deliberation we are optimistic successful moving forward."

Even so, she added, "there are inactive existent concerns astir compiling lists erstwhile looking astatine this worldly and being capable to perchance merchandise agents' names."

FBIAA, a voluntary nonrecreational association, represents much than 14,000 progressive and retired FBI peculiar agents. The bureau joined 9 anonymous FBI employees earlier this week successful suing the Justice Department to artifact entree to records of agents progressive successful the Jan. 6 investigation, citing fears of interior punishment oregon retaliation, arsenic good arsenic threats to the agents oregon the agents' families should their names beryllium made public.

The justice successful the case, U.S. Judge Jia Cobb, is expected to regularisation connected their petition for exigency injunctive alleviation aboriginal Friday afternoon.

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The FBI's interactions with the Council for American-Islamic Relations was restricted owed to allegations from the DOJ. (Getty Images)

The interrogation comes arsenic rank-and-file DOJ and FBI employees person been roiled by caller firings astatine DOJ, forced resignations oregon retirements of FBI unit and a elaborate questionnaire sent to thousands of FBI agents asking them to item their engagement successful the Jan. 6 investigations. 

Justice Department acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove attempted to assuage FBI agents' fears. He stressed successful a caller email that the effort was simply to get and reappraisal what relation agents played successful the Jan. 6 investigation, and was not intended to beryllium a precursor to a wide expulsion of employees.

The suit filed this week emphasized their intent to guarantee their identities were not released to the nationalist and that they were not retaliated against for doing their jobs. 

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Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a erstwhile Trump attorney, directed the FBI acting manager to occurrence 7 circumstantial employees by Monday. (Angela Weiss - Pool/Getty Images)

Campa underscored these deep-running concerns to Fox News, noting that FBI employees and the cause relation "didn't person overmuch clarification connected what that database was going to beryllium utilized for, too a wide connection of conscionable unit actions," erstwhile the DOJ issued its request.

"So it raised a batch of interest wrong the bureau – chiefly due to the fact that we person seen implicit the past fewer weeks the subordinate U.S. attorneys connected the probe beryllium terminated, and past our seventh level enactment beryllium presented with ultimatums to either discontinue oregon beryllium terminated." 

Other erstwhile section officials cited akin concerns successful caller days, expressing fearfulness that immoderate wide purge of employees could compromise decades of bureau acquisition crossed the bureau's much than 52 tract offices, who person heavy cognition of analyzable contented areas ranging from counterterrorism and convulsive transgression to cause trafficking, cartel enactment and more. 

"It takes a truly agelong clip to get an cause hired and done the process," Campa told Fox News Digital, citing the lengthy inheritance cheque and clearance process, arsenic good arsenic training astatine Quantico, Virginia. 

"We can't conscionable prime idiosyncratic up disconnected the thoroughfare time and marque them an FBI agent," she said. "So erstwhile we suffer FBI agents – whether it beryllium done status oregon immoderate benignant of ‘mass purge,’ to usage a word that's been thrown astir successful the media, it volition instrumentality years and years and years, if not decades, to regenerate that experience."

"That’s scary for everyone astatine the bureau due to the fact that we request to beryllium capable to person those radical lasting adjacent to america to beryllium capable to get this enactment done." 

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Campa said the "best lawsuit scenario" is that the identities of the FBI agents are kept backstage and that the installation of imperishable enactment astatine DOJ and FBI volition resoluteness the contention arsenic DOJ commits to a process for looking astatine the Jan. 6 investigations.

"I don't cognize of an FBI cause who doesn't basal by their work, truthful we invited a reappraisal of the work," she said. "But we are conscionable acrophobic that it volition beryllium done successful a thorough and just manner."