Per week earlier than Donald Trump’s inauguration final 12 months, Brian Driscoll, a embellished FBI particular agent, acquired a sequence of calls that alarmed him. He was being provided the No. 2 job on the FBI and was instructed that if he didn’t take it, a political appointee would doubtless get the position. Driscoll didn’t assume that was a suitable different, so he hesitantly agreed.
But then got here the vetting course of, Driscoll says, which raised extra issues.
Over the subsequent few days, Driscoll says he was requested a sequence of questions by incoming Trump officers about his private politics, together with who he voted for, when he began supporting Trump, and whether or not he’d voted for a Democrat in latest elections.
At one level, in accordance to Driscoll, incoming FBI Director Kash Patel instructed him the vetting wouldn’t be a problem as long as he wasn’t lively on social media, didn’t donate to the Democratic Party, and didn’t vote for Vice President Kamala Harris within the 2024 election.
“It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” says Driscoll, who grew to become acting director of the FBI for a month earlier than Patel was confirmed within the job. Patel eventually fired Driscoll in August 2025, and Driscoll is now suing Patel and the Trump administration for wrongful termination.
In an unique interview with NCS’s Anderson Cooper, Driscoll’s first since being fired final 12 months, the former agent gives recent particulars about what he says was a White House-directed purge of the FBI aimed toward punishing or eradicating staff concerned in investigations into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot in addition to the probe into Trump’s possession of categorised paperwork after his first time period.
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In a gathering in Patel’s workplace after he had been confirmed, Patel instructed Driscoll that “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,” Driscoll says.
“It was the first time he articulated it that bluntly to me,” Driscoll instructed NCS, including that Patel mentioned his personal job security because the newly confirmed FBI director relied on eradicating agents who had labored on circumstances towards Trump.
The Justice Department has moved to dismiss Driscoll’s case. It didn’t reply to NCS’s request for remark — nor did the FBI or a spokesperson for Patel.
Driscoll factors to a key second when he was requested by Emil Bove, the acting deputy lawyer common on the time, to produce a list of all FBI staff, some 6,000 names, who had been concerned in Trump investigations.
Driscoll instructed NCS that when he requested Bove why he wanted that listing of staff, the response he bought was that there was “cultural rot in the FBI.”
“I was telling them this is wrong,” Driscoll says.
Driscoll says Bove instructed him that White House deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller wished to see firings on the FBI related to those who had simply occurred at DOJ, the place greater than a dozen profession federal prosecutors who’d labored with former particular counsel Jack Smith on circumstances towards Trump have been fired.
Driscoll says Bove then gave him a listing of eight subject leaders and govt assistant administrators to hearth who had labored on January 6 investigations. It included a number of staff who have been shut to retirement. Driscoll says he pleaded with Bove to let the people get to retirement in order not to compromise their pension and advantages. Driscoll acquired a termination memo for the agents a number of days later that mentioned they may retire by a sure date or be fired.
Bove was confirmed final 12 months to a lifetime appointment as a federal appellate decide. He didn’t reply to NCS’s request for remark.
Driscoll considered his household, he says, and of whether or not he may look himself within the mirror and “say I didn’t compromise what I knew was right, and so my actions there forward were easier to a degree.”
That’s when Driscoll despatched a bureau-wide e-mail to all 38,000 FBI staff informing them of Bove’s request for added names concerned in January 6 investigations.
“As we’ve said since the moment we agreed to take on these roles, we are going to follow the law, follow FBI policy, and do what’s in the best interest of the workforce and the American people — always,” Driscoll mentioned within the e-mail.
In a follow-up e-mail to FBI employees, Bove accused Driscoll of “insubordination” and wrote that, “No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties.”
Before his firing, Driscoll had been an FBI particular agent for almost twenty years, incomes the FBI Medal of Valor and Shield of Bravery for actions beneath hearth. He grew up in New York and was ending highschool when 9/11 occurred, and the expertise prompted him to pursue a profession in regulation enforcement, he says.
Driscoll says he felt the identical sort of “helplessness” as he did on 9/11 when he bought the orders to hearth skilled agents. He says it was worse than getting shot at within the subject.
“You take all of these highly experienced people with the perspective gained through that experience, through success and failure alike, and remove them,” Driscoll instructed NCS. “It’s devastating to the workforce, not just for the morale, but also the stability of the organization and the faith in it from the people inside of it and the people outside of it.”