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President Donald Trump on Monday slammed the FBI as "corrupt" and praised his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, as the man to "straighten it out" as he declined to answer questions over whether his administration will remove bureau employees involved in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Asked Monday by Fox News whether he believed anyone involved in the Jan. 6 investigation should be fired, Trump did not answer outright. Instead, he criticized the actions of a bureau he has repeatedly decried as "corrupt," and one he insists has targeted him specifically.
"I think the FBI was a very corrupt institution, and I'm a victim of it in the true sense," Trump told Fox News while addressing reporters Monday at the Oval Office. He also added that he believes the bureau's reputation has been "damaged badly, as has the DOJ's."
"But you know what, we have to have pristine, beautiful, perfect law enforcement," Trump said.
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"We have to bring the reputation of the FBI not even [back] to what it was— even better than it ever was," Trump said. "But Kash has to be the one to do it," he added. "Kash will straighten it out."
Trump's remarks come days after Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed the acting FBI director to terminate eight FBI employees and identify all current and former bureau personnel assigned to the Jan. 6 and Hamas cases for an internal review.
"I do not believe that the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully," Bove wrote in the memo, instructing that the eight employees be fired by Monday, Feb. 3, at 5:30 p.m.
Former FBI and Justice Department officials warned in interviews with Fox News Digital that such firings, while within Trump's authority, could have a chilling effect on the rest of the bureau should the administration move to get rid of the personnel involved in the Jan. 6 investigations.
The Trump administration has not yet said if it will move to take action against the individuals involved.
But new concerns were raised after Bove sent a 12-page questionnaire to FBI personnel across the country asking them to detail their involvement in the Jan. 6 investigations, noting that the department would begin a "review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary."
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The remarks come after Trump, in his second term as president, moved to immediately issue a blanket pardon and sentence commutation for all 1,600 criminal defendants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, whom he has repeatedly referred to as "hostages."
Since taking office, Trump has also fired the inspectors general of 17 separate federal agencies, fired more than a dozen prosecutors involved in the special counsel investigations led by Jack Smith, and ordered more than half a dozen FBI officials to either resign or retire from their posts or be fired.
Combined, the actions have sparked new fears that the FBI could see the ousting of decades of expertise from within the bureau's ranks, including employees well-versed in detecting and responding to counterterrorism threats, organized and violent crime, drug trafficking, and more.
Others noted that the Jan. 6 investigation was originally launched under the Trump administration – a detail that the president and some of his supporters neglect to mention in their frequent criticisms against it.
"We're in an extremely precarious time right now, in a very chaotic world," one former Justice Department official said in an interview. "The terrorism front is as concerning as I've seen it, ever. So it doesn't make sense to me why we'd be taking a meat cleaver to agencies that defend against that."
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