Why are the FBI and the CIA conducting a sweep in the USA? Analysis

The head of the FBI, Kesh Patel, and the head of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, are making massive cuts in their departments in order to get rid of representatives of the "deep state" and prevent leaks of classified information. What threat to the United States are agents sympathetic to the previous administration, how the American approach to intelligence is changing, and what risks large—scale purges of the spy network pose - in the Izvestia article.

Threat to the President

• On May 15, former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump during his first presidential term in 2017, posted on a social network a photo of shells that add up to the numbers 8647. In the United States, "86" is a slang expression meaning "to clean up" or "get rid of," and 47 was interpreted as an allusion to Donald Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States.

• The publication immediately provoked a strong reaction from Republicans, and Donald Trump himself said that the image was a call for his murder. Komi deleted the post on the same day, explaining that he considered the found image of shells to be a "political message," but allegedly did not assume that the figures could be related to violence.

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• The Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service have launched an investigation into Comey on suspicion of making death threats. The former head of the FBI has repeatedly sharply criticized Trump after his dismissal, which occurred due to the closure of the investigation into Hillary Clinton, who used personal mail to send official and classified information. At the same time, Comey was also criticized by Democrats for launching an investigation against Clinton in the first place.

• After his dismissal from the FBI, Comey became a science fiction writer. According to one version, voiced by the American press, the scandalous post was published in order to draw public attention to his new book.

CIA reform

• After coming to power, Trump began to replace the heads of key departments with loyal people in order to carry out global reforms in government: former TV presenter Pete Hegseth became the head of the Pentagon, Senator Tulsi Gabbard headed the US national intelligence service, and lawyer Kesh Patel was appointed the new director of the FBI.

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• Former President Joe Biden acted in the same way — he began his work by appointing his candidates to key posts. As a result, all the key national agencies — the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA — worked for the Democrats and searched for compromising information about Trump and his ties to Russia. The Democrats made no secret of their intention to obstruct Trump's initiatives after the election, as demonstrated by the blocking of certain decisions of the US president in court — on the expulsion of illegal migrants and the reduction of government staff.

On May 13, it became known that Tulsi Gabbard fired the heads of the National Intelligence Council, who were called radical opponents of Trump, and subordinated the council itself to her management. The agency's reform was carried out to eliminate the "politicization of intelligence," and the reason was the leak to the press of information about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, whose activities were evaluated by dismissed employees (we discussed more about this gang and why its members are being deported to El Salvador here). Earlier, Gabbard fired more than 100 national intelligence specialists who belonged to the LGBT community (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation).

• So far, the CIA, which is an independent branch of the U.S. Intelligence Community led by Gabbard, has managed to avoid large-scale purges. However, now his work is being reformed to refocus on China, which has become a technology giant and has become a priority target. To increase the flow of intelligence from this country, the CIA plans to reduce the number of analysts in the department and increase the number of agents on the ground. Among other things, Chinese officials are being recruited for this purpose through Chinese-language videos and instructions on how to use the darknet. However, native speakers have already criticized the videos, and the success of such tactics remains questionable.

• FBI Director Cash Patel is also purging his agency: he suspended an analyst who was investigating Trump and reassigned two agents. Now he is trying to restructure the agency's work and reduce 1.5 thousand employees. Nevertheless, Patel resisted attacks by the Department of Government Efficiency and its former head, Elon Musk, who forced massive layoffs of FBI employees.

The danger of mass layoffs

- The case of Comey has demonstrated that supporters of the US Democratic Party, even after their dismissal, retain their party loyalty and are able to threaten Trump. There have also been reports in the Western press that dismissed American spies are being recruited by intelligence services from other countries. But experts note that most former CIA and FBI employees remain working in the United States in the same field as educators or book authors.

- The cuts will inevitably lead to the weakening of national agencies. Already, Republicans are facing a shortage of specialists who can be appointed to vacant positions. Meanwhile, the tasks assigned to the departments are only multiplying. Cash Patel said that currently the FBI's special attention should be focused on the border with Canada, through which about 85% of suspected terrorists in the United States enter the country.

During the preparation of the material, Izvestia interviewed:

• political scientist Viktor Mizin;
• political scientist Konstantin Blokhin.