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- Former FBI agents have launched a support network to help bureau employees struggling under Director Kash Patel’s leadership.
- The group says it will provide free legal representation, mental health services and job placement assistance to agents facing termination.
- Patel has fired dozens of agents for perceived bias, including those who worked on Trump investigations.
In the wake of FBI Director Kash Patel’s efforts to root out so-called weaponization in the agency, firing dozens of employees for their perceived bias, former agents set up their own group to help those struggling under the new leadership.
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Former Assistant Special Agent in Charge Mike Feinberg said in a statement that the FBI Support Network will serve “to offer tangible assistance” to agents inside.
That help will include free legal representation, mental health services and assistance in finding jobs for those wanting to leave, according to a release announcing the group, which says it is adding “an army of former FBI officials who want to assist those inside.”The group is a part of “Justice Connection,” which has been offering similar assistance to Justice Department employees.
CNN reached out to the FBI for comment on the new support group.
Former FBI agents have sued Patel and the Justice Department over their ousting, arguing the firings were clearly political, did not follow FBI protocol and in some instances violated their constitutional rights.
In several lawsuits, agents say they have struggled to find other employment and have had their careers stripped from them for doing their job.
Patel has fired agents who worked on past investigations into Trump; agents who were captured kneeling during protests over George Floyd’s death; and others, including Brian Driscoll, who ran the agency for a brief time before Patel was sworn in.
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In a video announcing the group, Driscoll, a member, said agents “facing these unprecedented times are not alone,” noting that it was time to help “the special agents, intelligence analysts and the professional staff who are under attack.”
Driscoll is also suing the agency over his termination in August after he worked to prevent the very layoffs Patel later oversaw.
Driscoll recently told CNN that while being vetted for the top job, he was asked a series of questions by incoming Trump officials about his personal politics, including whom he voted for, when he started supporting Trump, and whether he’d voted for a Democrat in recent elections. The questions alarmed him, he said.
“It’s time for those of us who also once carried credentials, badges, and sidearms alongside our FBI colleagues to offer tangible assistance when they are faced with the choice between an order and what they know is just, and to help them when they have to weather the consequences of upholding their oaths,” Feinberg’s statement said.
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