February was a busy month for FBI Director Kash Patel. On the 23rd he partied with the gold medal-winning U.S. Men’s Hockey team. Two days later he fired a dozen FBI agents who had worked on a probe into classified documents kept at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The agents were part of a global espionage unit known as CI-12, charged with monitoring threats from Iran. The firings came just three days before the U.S. attack on Iran.
Patel fired the agents after learning that his phone, along with that of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, had been under subpoena as part of the investigation into classified documents stored at Trump’s private club in Palm Beach. More than 13,000 government documents were recovered by the FBI, including nuclear information as well as FBI, CIA and NSA documents related to national security interests.
The FBI is reportedly bracing for more firings of C1-12 agents and staff, veteran employees trained on threats and spy operations with a special focus on the Middle East and Iran. The unit also investigates Cuba and other terrorist organizations.
Although the firings may seem incongruous during a time when the U.S. has initiated a war in the Middle East, they aren’t surprising. Patel has fired dozens of employees over the past year who contributed to the investigations of the president or who were perceived not to align with the administration’s agenda.