The leader of the FBI's largest field office, in New York City, said he was forced out of his job following clashes with Justice Department officials, the New York Times reports. Veteran agent James E. Dennehy, who had run the office since September, had angered Trump administration officials by supporting bureau leaders who resisted turning over the names of those who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Dennehy had also angered Attorney General Pam Bondi by what she claimed without offering corroboration was the New York office’s failure to turn over all the investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier charged with sex trafficking who killed himself in prison. “Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did,” Dennehy wrote Monday in an email to colleagues. “I was not given a reason for this decision. Regardless, I apologize to all of you for not being able to fulfill my commitment to you.”
The forced departure of Dennehy, a respected leader, is sure to further rattle an organization already under siege. Before being named to head the agency’s flagship office in New York, Dennehy headed its office in Newark for two years. But he spent the bulk of his career in New York and at headquarters in Washington, including leading New York’s counterintelligence and cyber division. In January, the acting leaders of the F.B.I., Brian Driscoll and Robert Kissane, refused to provide a list of personnel involved in the Jan. 6 cases. Emil Bove, the acting No. 2 in the Justice Department, accused the men of being insubordinate. Ultimately, the F.B.I. turned over the information. In a defiant email at the time, Dennehy came to their defense and urged his staff to “dig in” after the Trump administration targeted officials involved in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack. He also praised the bureau’s interim leaders for defending its independence. On Monday, he wrote that among the top qualities he would miss about the bureau was that independence. “We will not bend. We will not falter. We will not sacrifice what is right for anything or anyone,” he wrote.