FBI fires senior officials, including former acting head

The FBI has forced out at least two senior officials, including the bureau’s former acting director, in its latest purge of leaders who drew the ire of right-wing supporters of President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the dismissals.

Brian Driscoll, who served as acting head of the bureau during the first weeks of Trump’s second term before the confirmation of Kash Patel, was dismissed by senior leaders this week and will finish his last day Friday, said two people familiar with his departure.

During his brief tenure at the top, Driscoll had earned the respect of much of the FBI’s rank-and-file after he stood up to demands from then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove that he identify those involved in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which agents feared was a precursor to a widespread purge.

Also dismissed this week was Steven Jensen, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, said three people familiar with his case, who like those who discussed Driscoll’s dismissal spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss unannounced personnel moves.

Jensen’s appointment in April to leadership in the Washington field office drew particular backlash from Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, given Jensen’s prior involvement leading a bureau domestic terrorism operations section that was centrally involved in investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

A spokesperson for the FBI did not immediately return requests for comment.

The exact reasons for Driscoll’s and Jensens’s dismissals remain unclear. Both had worked at the bureau for nearly 20 years in a variety of roles.

Immediately before Driscoll was briefly elevated to lead the FBI earlier this year, he served as the special agent of the FBI’s office in Newark. Since his stint at as acting director, he has worked as assistant director of the Critical Incident Response Group, which manages the bureau’s hostage rescue team and other matters.

Jensen had been scheduled to appear alongside Jeanine Pirro, Washington’s U.S. attorney, and other Justice Department officials on Thursday at a news conference to announce a federal hate crime indictment against Elias Rodriguez, the man accused of killing two Israeli embassy staffers in the city earlier this year. He did not attend.