Kash Patel Fires FBI Agents Who Worked on the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Search

FBI Director Kash Patel terminated a group of bureau employees on February 26, 2026 who had worked on the investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, including agents who took part in the 2022 search of the property. Reporting placed the number at least six and as many as roughly ten. The firings are part of a pattern under Patel: over the preceding year he pushed out dozens of employees who had worked on investigations of the President or were seen as misaligned with administration priorities, and the Justice Department has carried out comparably broad prosecutor removals.

Removing the agents who executed a lawfully issued federal search warrant, on the basis of that work, addresses whether career agents can carry out judicially authorized investigations of a sitting president without career consequences once he takes office.

The FBI Agents Association condemned the terminations as unlawful, saying they "weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce" and put the nation at greater risk. No litigation over these specific firings is recorded in the sources reviewed. A week later, on March 3, reporting described further cuts to an FBI counterintelligence team tracking Iranian threats.