The FBI has taken drastic steps to comply with President Trump’s hiring freeze, causing deep uncertainty within the bureau’s ranks and unnerving new hires.
The moves seem at odds with Executive order The president issued it hours after taking office, which states that such a freeze would not apply to national security or public safety officials. Since one of the FBI’s primary missions is to protect against terrorism and other potential threats, it remains unclear why the bureau was not exempt.
Regardless of the steps, they are sure to hamper the agency’s efforts to recruit, retain and train employees.
The office’s human resources department, in an internal memo issued Friday, detailed the steps it was taking as a result of the matter, including providing the White House with a list of probationary employees.
Employee concerns have been exacerbated by the deep suspicions and sustained attacks directed at the office by President Trump and his pick for agency director, Kash Patel, regarding its previous criminal investigations that implicated Mr. Trump. Mr. Patel has promised to turn the FBI’s headquarters into a “deep state” museum, dismantle the bureau’s intelligence staff and shrink the Office of General Counsel, which provides the director with key legal advice.
Current FBI employees, already concerned, wonder whether the directive signals the administration’s intent to gut parts of the nation’s main law enforcement agency, even as Trump seeks to quickly overhaul the federal bureaucracy.
The FBI declined to comment and referred questions to the Justice Department, which, like other government agencies, has been subject to a hiring freeze. A ministry spokesman did not immediately comment.
One move that has raised concerns at the FBI is the White House’s request for the names of probationary employees, or employees who have joined the bureau in the past two years – some of whom are military veterans. The list includes nearly 1,000 agents in field offices across the country.
The memo said the office must justify the names of employees on the list that the agency wants to keep.
“To be clear, our employees on that list are on that list because we have designated them to perform critical tasks,” the memo said. “We will do everything we can to ensure they remain here at the FBI.”
Firing new agents would be a major blow to the FBI, which spends tens of thousands of dollars recruiting, hiring and putting them through 20 weeks of intense training.
The FBI said the new categories of agents and analysts will begin training at the bureau’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, as planned on Sunday. But future classes, the backbone of the agency’s ability to protect the country, appear to be on hold with job offers to agents and analysts paused.
Field offices, struggling to keep their teams full, will have to scramble to make sure investigations and other operations continue to run smoothly if clients are let go and more can’t be hired to keep up with retirements.
All recruitment events and activities have also been paused. The office said the job advertisements had been removed, but it was trying to obtain an exemption for private clients.
The FBI, which has about 38,000 employees, was already facing budget cuts before Trump’s hiring freeze.
In June, Christopher Wray, who had fallen out of favor with Mr. Trump and resigned before the inauguration, offered He told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee That the agency was already stretched thin due to previous budget cuts.
He warned that the threats facing the country have never been greater.
“Our opponents are not reducing their efforts because of the limited budget environment,” he added. “In fact, threat actors may attempt to take advantage of federal budget cuts to conduct nefarious activities.”
Similar to the Ministry of JusticeThe FBI is also pausing the Distinguished Trainee Program for fiscal year 2026, the memo said.
