FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen agents and staff from CI-12, the FBI's counterintelligence unit specifically tasked with monitoring threats from Iran, just days before the US launched military strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026.
The agents were not fired for incompetence or misconduct — they were purged because they had been involved in the investigation of Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Many offices in the DOJ's National Security Division lost at least half their employees in the same purge.
The timing is extraordinary: the administration gutted the FBI's Iran expertise immediately before launching a war with Iran. The CI-12 unit handled cases ranging from classified document mishandling to tracking foreign spies — exactly the kind of work critical during wartime. Firing these agents left a gaping hole in the US intelligence apparatus at the worst possible moment.
This is the clearest example of Trump's loyalty purges directly compromising national security. The agents' sin was not poor performance — it was investigating the president.