FBI Director Kash Patel has carried out another purge of the bureau’s senior ranks, forcing out field office leaders and other senior agents connected to the two criminal investigations of Donald Trump, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.

The special agents in charge in Atlanta and New Orleans have been removed, as well as the acting assistant director in charge of the New York field office, two people familiar with the matter said.

As many as six agents in Miami were forced out over their connection to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida resort where he stored classified documents, two people said.  And other agents pushed out were involved in the Arctic Frost investigation of  Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The exact number of departures was unclear.  An FBI spokesman did not respond to questions.

That kind of turnover is unheard of at the FBI, which has a long tradition of being an independent law enforcement agency staffed by non-political civil servants.

The news of the oustings came days after Patel and his aides told a conservative news outlet they were committed to removing anyone from the FBI who had been involved in authorizing payments to confidential sources involved in identifying Jan. 6 rioters.

It also came hours after former special counsel Jack Smith testified in a public hearing on Capitol Hill about his role in twice indicting Trump when he was a former president (those cases were dropped when Trump was reelected in 2024). Smith strongly defended his approach to the investigation into whether Trump worked to overturn the 2020 election, as well as to the probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents once he left office. But Republican lawmakers lashed out at him regardless, accusing Smith of political bias, as Trump called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Smith while the hearing was ongoing.

The FBI Agents Association has said it’s improper to fire FBI agents in the absence of evidence of misconduct or other proper cause, but that hasn’t stopped Patel from doing so.  Some previously fired agents are suing him, including Brian Driscoll, who had been acting director before Patel was confirmed by the Senate.

Patel has previously fired a dozen agents who took a knee during a racial justice protest in Washington in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.  Even before Patel took office, the Trump Justice Department removed most of the FBI’s senior leaders in Washington.

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