FBI Director Kash Patel has purged another longtime senior official, triggering a fresh wave of fear throughout the bureau as employees brace for what appears to be another politically motivated purge of nonpartisan agents who have drawn disfavor from President Donald Trump or Republicans.
According to MS NOW's Ken Dilanian, Deputy Assistant Director Emily Morales was summarily fired and escorted out by FBI security last Friday on orders from Patel who has been keeping a low profile after being buffeted with accusations of excessive drinking.
Sources inside the FBI told Dilanian that Morales' removal "was widely perceived inside the bureau as the latest in a series of firings of nonpartisan FBI agents who did their jobs in a way that drew disfavor from President Donald Trump or Republicans."
Morales' apparent crime: her involvement in investigating James Hodgkinson, the gunman who opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, shooting four people including two Capitol Police officers and Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA).
The core issue appears to be how the FBI characterized the attack. An FBI report labeled the shooting as "suicide by cop" rather than the "hate crime" some Republicans demanded.
A GOP House committee issued its own report insisting: "The FBI case file makes clear this case was a premeditated assassination attempt on Republican congressmen by a radical, left-wing political extremist, who was seeking to affect the conduct of our government."
Appearing with host Ana Cabrera, Dilanian was asked how the agency employees are handling the firing that came out of the blue.
“This is a crushing blow to morale because it sends a message that you never know when the hammer is going to fall,” he replied. “It's unclear exactly what you could do as a career FBI official that might alienate Republicans or the Trump administration. You know, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has boasted that they've gotten rid of all the agents who were involved in those investigations, those criminal investigations of Donald Trump. And again, these were people just doing their jobs.”
“They were assigned these cases and so it's really, really a tough situation,” he elaborated. “Now, at the FBI, you have people who are retirement eligible, are taking retirement, and those who are not are trying to keep their heads down and preserve their jobs and pay their mortgages, and essentially waiting this administration out on them.”