Trump's FBI Purges Could Reduce Danger Posed by the Bureau—or Make It His Weapon

A defanged FBI could minimize our reliance on politicians’ (rarely) good intentions.

As the Trump administration enacts its agenda, two priorities—one bad and the other good—come into conflict. President Donald Trump and his supporters have threatened to punish political enemies who, they believe, used the mechanisms of government to target them. But they've also acted to shrink the state. To the extent that efforts to defang intelligence and enforcement agencies like the FBI precede and prevail over attempts at retribution, such vindictiveness will be less possible. That would reduce the danger of the government in the hands of the current president and those to come.

Threats Against Political Enemies

When he was running to return to the White House, Trump threatened to "go after" then-President Joe Biden and his family with a special prosecutor. He also said members of Congress who investigated the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot "should go to jail." He told a crowd that his main opponent in the presidential race, Kamala Harris, "should be impeached and prosecuted." He has a nasty habit of threatening to punish opponents, even if he later hedges his comments with promises that "retribution will be through success" in helping the country.

To be fair, Trump himself faced investigations and prosecutions that looked like political hit jobs. In June 2023, 62 percent of respondents to a Quinnipiac University poll thought the Department of Justice's case against Trump was politically motivated. A year later, 57 percent of those polled by Monmouth University believed the same about the New York "hush money" trial in which he was convicted. But that's a legacy to repudiate and end, not perpetuate.

But along with seething at enemies, Trump has promised "to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies." And among the agencies targeted by this administration is one of the more dangerous to our liberty: the FBI.

Defanging an FBI With a Troubled History

"On January 31, 2025, the Acting Deputy Attorney General instructed the Acting FBI Director to terminate the FBI's entire senior leadership team and the Assistant Director in charge of the Washington Field Office," complains the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) in a letter to Congress. The letter goes on to object that bureau personnel are "having their careers jeopardized for carrying out the orders they were given by their superiors in the FBI."

This came after news reports that top FBI executives had been told to resign or else be fired. The Cato Institute's Patrick Eddington confirmed that the firings included all executive assistant directors "and over two dozen Special Agents in Charge."

From the beginning, the FBI has frequently crossed the line to take on the role of domestic political police. It targets political dissidents across the political spectrum, spies on Americans, and acts as a thuggish enforcement arm for whoever is in power.

"The FBI, for example, has placed more emphasis on domestic dissent than on organized crime and, according to some, let its efforts against foreign spies suffer because of the amount of time spent checking up on American protest groups," the U.S. Senate's Church Committee reported in 1976.

The FBI hasn't really improved since then. In 2023, the bureau was caught abusing access to information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to dig up information on activists and political donors. Three years ago, it issued bulletins claiming that a taste for Revolutionary War imagery, such as the Betsy Ross flag, might reveal people tending toward "violent extremism."

"The FBI entraps hapless people all the time, arrests them, charges them with domestic terrorism offenses or other serious felonies, claims victory in the 'war on domestic terrorism,' and then asks Congress for more money to entrap more people," John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer and whistleblower, wrote in 2021.

The FBI has a long history of hostility to encryption and other efforts to maintain privacy even as Chinese hackers use government-mandated wiretapping backdoors in the country's telecommunications infrastructure to gain access to sensitive information. A 2018 Inspector General's report found the FBI to be meddling in politics in ways that offended all sides and even some agents.

Accused, depending on who is on the receiving end of its abuses, of working for both Democrats and Republicans, the FBI is more accurately described as a tool for maintaining the position of the political establishment. But it's most dedicated to preserving its own power and prestige.

So, if President Trump wants to strip the FBI of its power and mount its seal on the wall as a trophy, all the best to him. But that's assuming he wants to remove or at least reduce the danger posed by the FBI rather than repurpose the bureau for his own political uses.

The FBI Could Become Less Dangerous, or a Tool for the New Boss

As I write, FBI officials have just complied with an order to turn over the names of employees who investigated the January 6 riot; agents are suing to keep the president from using the information. Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll has apparently become a rallying point for some sort of resistance to the White House's moves against the bureau. While Trump's opponents cheer that resistance, the prospect of a powerful government agency defying orders is disturbing—especially if what they're defying is an attempt to reduce their own power and privilege.

Whether that's what the administration is doing, though, remains up in the air. Trump's nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, approached the job with a list of people he believes deserve attention once he's in a position of power. That's the exact opposite of what we should want in a new chief for a powerful bureau with a troubled history. But he's also referenced his own experience at the hands of investigators as a basis for opposing the politicization of government agencies.

"The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice," Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings.

Hopefully, that's true. An FBI led by a leader opposed to politicization would be refreshing.

Even better, though, would be more firings at the FBI, along with reductions in its power and reach. If that happens, the intent of future presidents and FBI directors will be less important, since the bureau will no longer be such a dangerous weapon in the hands of government officials.