A top Justice Department official has accused the FBI’s acting leaders of “insubordination” in a memo in which he sought to soothe anxiety inside the bureau over the potential for a broad purge of agents involved in investigating the Jan.

The acting deputy attorney general accused FBI leadership of “insubordination” by refusing to identify a “core team” of bureau employees who worked on January 6 investigations, while trying to assure that rank-and-file agents who “simply followed orders” will not be fired unless they “acted with corrupt or partisan intent,

The former Trump defense lawyer and Florida attorney general issues a raft of new orders, undoing a broad array of Biden administration policies

The Senate has confirmed Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general. Her confirmation puts a longtime ally of Donald Trump at the helm of a Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican president.

The first attorney general, Edmund Randolph, was President George Washington’s confidant and close political ally. Between then and now, presidents have, from time to time, appointed friends and supporters to be attorneys general. They even chose campaign managers or their party’s national chairperson to be attorney general of the United States.