At least 10 FBI agents who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe into President Donald Trump were fired on Wednesday. The Daily Mail, citing unnamed sources, reported the dismissals. The agents were tied to the investigation into Trump's handling of classified files after he left the White House in 2021.
The firings follow the complete legal failure of Smith's dual investigations into the president. A Florida federal judge dismissed the classified documents case in mid-2024, ruling that Smith had been appointed unlawfully. Smith had launched the first federal criminal indictments of a former president in U.S. history, and a federal court found the entire appointment lacked legal authority.
The documents case had alleged that Trump transported confidential materials to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office at the end of his first term and attempted to obstruct the Justice Department's efforts to retrieve them. A second investigation, known as Arctic Frost, alleged that Trump unlawfully sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Smith dropped those charges after Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
Two investigations. Two collapses. Zero convictions. And the agents who carried out the work are now facing consequences.
The FBI Agents Association, which represents current and former agents, criticized the firings and warned they could damage national security. The association released a statement on the dismissals.
These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau's ability to meet its recruitment goals.
That is one way to frame it. Another way: when a federal judge rules that your boss was appointed unlawfully and every case he built crumbles, the personnel decisions that follow are not arbitrary. They are a direct consequence of institutional failure at the highest levels of federal law enforcement during the Biden administration.
The dismissals also arrive in the shadow of a separate controversy. The Daily Mail reported that the FBI subpoenaed phone records of conversations between FBI Director Kash Patel and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during the Biden administration. Patel said the calls occurred in 2022 and 2023, when both he and Wiles were private citizens and the federal probe into Trump was still active. He characterized the subpoena as an example of government overreach under former Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Wiles' phone records were reviewed during the documents investigation, according to reports cited by the Daily Mail. Whether Patel's records were examined remains publicly unconfirmed. Both were questioned by investigators during the Mar-a-Lago probe, according to reports.
Subpoenaing the phone records of private citizens who later became senior government officials is not a minor procedural footnote. Investigators will need to determine the full scope of the surveillance and whether it was justified or whether it amounted to political intelligence gathering dressed up in legal process.
The GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee disclosed that the FBI seized phone metadata from multiple Republican lawmakers during the Arctic Frost investigation. The records showed call logs related to contacts around January 6, 2021, but did not include the content of calls, according to reports cited by the Daily Mail. Smith testified that investigators followed all legal requirements in obtaining those records and said they helped verify the timeline of events.
Republican leaders, including President Trump, have called for Smith, Garland, former FBI Director Christopher Wray, and others to be prosecuted over their handling of the investigations. Congressional Democrats have defended Smith, saying he acted appropriately in pursuing evidence.
An official previously told CBS that the acting attorney general made the decision to target federal employees who worked on the two cases because he did not believe certain officials could be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda due to their role in prosecuting him.
On Monday, a federal judge permanently blocked the Justice Department from releasing Smith's report on the documents investigation. Smith informed Congress that court orders prohibit him from discussing details beyond what has already been made public in court filings. The Daily Mail contacted the White House and the FBI for comment on the firings.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether additional personnel actions are planned for prosecutors or other officials who served on Smith's team. No sentencing, no ongoing trial, and no active charges remain from either investigation. The legal machinery that Smith built has been entirely dismantled by courts and by Smith himself.
When a special counsel is ruled unlawfully appointed, when every indictment he secured either gets tossed by a judge or withdrawn by his own hand, and when the investigation sweeps up the phone records of private citizens and sitting lawmakers along the way, cleaning house is not retaliation. It is accountability.
