Top F.B.I. Agent in New York Vows to ‘Dig In’ After Removals at Agency

The top agent at the F.B.I.’s New York field office vowed in a defiant email to his staff to “dig in” after the Trump administration targeted officials involved in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack — and praised the bureau’s interim leaders for defending its independence.

“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy,” wrote James E. Dennehy, a veteran and highly respected agent who has run the largest and arguably the most important field office in the bureau since September.

Mr. Dennehy, through a representative in New York, declined to comment.

The email, viewed by The New York Times, came after the Justice Department ordered the F.B.I. on Friday to collect the names of bureau personnel who helped investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, raising the possibility that Mr. Trump’s political appointees plan to purge career bureau officials, including rank-and-file field agents. That number could reach 6,000 — or about a sixth of the bureau’s 38,000 employees, according to the F.B.I.

At least nine high-ranking officials have been forced out since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, plunging the bureau into confusion. Mr. Dennehy wrote that those removals had spread “fear and angst within the F.B.I. ranks.”

That sense of dread was stoked by a remarkable questionnaire sent to bureau employees, asking them to describe what, if any, role they had in investigating and prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters.

The form requires the employees to say if they collected evidence, provided support services, interviewed witnesses, executed search warrants or testified at trial — basic activities of F.B.I. employees during the normal and lawful course of their duties. They have until 3 p.m. Monday to complete the forms.

Mr. Dennehy urged his employees to remain calm and not to make any rushed decisions about their careers as he committed to providing assistance to them no matter what happened. He also suggested he had no intention of stepping down.

“Time for me to dig in,” he wrote.

In an extraordinary gesture, Mr. Dennehy, a former Marine, praised the two top acting officials at the F.B.I., Brian Driscoll and Robert C. Kissane, for “fighting” for the bureau’s employees. Both resisted efforts to immediately oust career employees, and they pushed for a formal review process to delay or mitigate the disruption, according to people familiar with the situation.

“They are warriors,” he said of those who pushed back on broad dismissals of F.B.I. personnel across the bureau, according to people directly familiar with the matter.

Such is the uncertainty at the F.B.I. that some bureau leaders have felt compelled to email colleagues to say they have not been removed.

“I know a lot of you have seen or heard reports that F.B.I. executives have been asked to resign or be fired,” the top agent in Seattle wrote on Friday in a message viewed by The Times. “To clarify my own status, as of this writing I have not been fired or asked to resign, nor have I received any indication I might be.”

On Saturday, the F.B.I. issued an unusual statement reassuring the work force that Mr. Driscoll was still the acting director. And Mr. Dennehy, in his email, also pushed back on rumors that anyone had been removed outside the small group of officials already known to have been ousted.

Mr. Dennehy’s office has roughly 1,100 agents and about 500 task officers, who are police investigators and law enforcement officers from other federal agencies assigned to work with the F.B.I. The number of agents in New York at times makes up as much as 10 percent of the agent population nationwide. There are also about 1,000 civilian employees, including analysts, technicians and other support staff.

One executive whose job appeared to be in peril, Spencer Evans, the top agent in Las Vegas, informed his staff on Thursday that he would be dismissed “from the rolls of the F.B.I.” as soon as Monday morning.

“I was given no rationale for this decision, which, as you might imagine, has come as a shock,” he wrote in an email viewed by The Times.

Another was the head of the New Orleans field office, who was asked to return to headquarters after his name surfaced as someone the administration might want to remove, according to current and former F.B.I. officials.

That agent was on vacation when a terrorist drove through a crowd on New Year’s Day and drew criticism for being away during Mardi Gras. On Jan. 6, 2021, he was also a top supervisor in the Washington field office and helped to direct the bureau’s response to the attack on the Capitol.

The Society of Former Special Agents of the F.B.I., which represents thousands of retirees, called the forced resignations “illegal actions” that violated civil service laws and the due process rights of employees. The Justice Department has not accused any of those targeted with improper conduct, and has based most of the personnel actions on the president’s discretion under the Constitution.

In his message to employees, Mr. Dennehy described those who had left as “extraordinary individuals,” saying, “I mourn the forced retirements.”

Mr. Dennehy likened the current situation to his days as a Marine in the early 1990s, when he dug a small foxhole five feet deep and hunkered down for safety.

“It sucked,” he wrote. “But it worked.”