2026年5月12日 美国东部时间早上6:00 / CNN
作者：伊莎贝尔·库尔舒德扬、安德森·库珀
布莱恩·德里斯科尔接受CNN采访。
CNN
去年特朗普就职典礼前一周，功勋卓著的联邦调查局特工布莱恩·德里斯科尔接到了一系列令他警觉的电话。他获邀担任联邦调查局第二号职位，同时被告知，如果他不接受这一职位，该职位很可能会落入一名政治任命官员手中。德里斯科尔认为这是一个无法接受的替代方案，于是犹豫地同意了。
但随后的审查流程，德里斯科尔表示，带来了更多担忧。
在接下来的几天里，德里斯科尔称，特朗普团队的过渡官员向他提出了一系列关于个人政治立场的问题，包括他投票给谁、何时开始支持特朗普，以及最近几届选举中是否曾投票给民主党人。
据德里斯科尔回忆，联邦调查局候任局长卡什·帕特尔曾对他说，只要他不在社交媒体上活跃、不向民主党捐款，且没有在2024年大选中投票给副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯，审查就不会有问题。
“这让我后背汗毛倒竖，”德里斯科尔说，他在帕特尔正式就职前曾担任了一个月的联邦调查局代理局长。帕特尔最终于2025年8月解雇了德里斯科尔，目前德里斯科尔正在起诉帕特尔和特朗普政府，指控其非法解雇。
在接受CNN安德森·库珀的独家专访时——这是他去年被解雇后的首次公开采访——这位前特工披露了新细节，称白宫主导了一场针对联邦调查局的清洗行动，旨在惩罚或解雇参与2021年1月6日国会山骚乱调查以及特朗普第一任期结束后其持有机密文件案调查的员工。
正在直播： 被解雇的前联邦调查局局长称，帕特尔将就业保障与清除参与特朗普相关调查的特工挂钩。升级账号观看完整报道。
德里斯科尔表示，在帕特尔正式就职后的一次办公室会议上，帕特尔告诉他：“联邦调查局试图把总统送进监狱，他对此耿耿于怀。”
“这是他第一次如此直白地向我阐明这一点，”德里斯科尔告诉CNN，并补充说，帕特尔表示自己作为新任联邦调查局局长的就业保障，取决于清除那些曾调查特朗普案件的特工。
美国司法部已提出驳回德里斯科尔的诉讼。该部门未回应CNN的置评请求——联邦调查局和帕特尔的发言人也同样未予置评。
德里斯科尔提到了一个关键节点：当时的代理副司法部长埃米尔·博夫要求他提供一份名单，列出所有约6000名参与特朗普相关调查的联邦调查局员工。
埃米尔·博夫于2025年6月25日出席参议院司法委员会听证会。
凯文·迪施/盖蒂图片社/资料图
德里斯科尔告诉CNN，当他询问博夫为何需要这份员工名单时，得到的回应是联邦调查局存在“文化腐败”。
“我当时就告诉他们，这是错误的，”德里斯科尔说。
德里斯科尔称，博夫告诉他，白宫副幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒希望联邦调查局展开类似司法部近期的裁员行动——当时已有十多名曾与前特别检察官杰克·史密斯合作调查特朗普案件的职业联邦检察官被解雇。
德里斯科尔表示，博夫随后给了他一份名单，要求解雇八名参与国会山骚乱调查的外勤负责人和执行助理局长，其中包括几名即将退休的员工。德里斯科尔称，他恳求博夫让这些员工正常退休，以免损害他们的养老金和福利。几天后，德里斯科尔收到了针对这些特工的解雇备忘录，上面写明他们可以在某个日期前退休，否则将被解雇。
博夫去年获得联邦上诉法官的终身任命。他未回应CNN的置评请求。
德里斯科尔说，他想到了自己的家人，想到自己是否能直视镜中的自己，“说我没有妥协自己明知正确的事”，从那以后，他的行动在某种程度上变得更加果断。
就在那时，德里斯科尔向联邦调查局全体3.8万名员工发送了一封全系统邮件，告知他们博夫要求提供更多参与国会山骚乱调查人员的名单。
“正如我们就任伊始所言，我们将始终遵循法律、遵守联邦调查局政策，做符合员工队伍和美国人民最佳利益的事，”德里斯科尔在邮件中写道。
在随后发给联邦调查局员工的邮件中，博夫指责德里斯科尔“违抗命令”，并写道：“任何只是遵循命令、以符合伦理的方式执行职责、参与国会山骚乱调查的联邦调查局员工，都不会面临解雇或其他处罚。”
布莱恩·德里斯科尔曾是联邦调查局特工。
布莱恩·德里斯科尔
被解雇前，德里斯科尔已担任联邦调查局特工近二十年，曾因在交火中的行动获得联邦调查局英勇勋章和勇敢盾形徽章。他在纽约长大，9·11事件发生时正临近高中毕业，他表示，这段经历促使他投身执法事业。
德里斯科尔说，当接到解雇资深特工的命令时，他感受到了和9·11事件时一样的“无助感”。他表示，这比在现场被子弹击中还要糟糕。
“你把这些经验丰富、拥有从成败中积累的视角的人全部赶走，”德里斯科尔告诉CNN，“这对整个队伍是毁灭性的，不仅会打击士气，还会破坏组织的稳定性，以及内部员工和外部民众对组织的信任。”
CNN Exclusive: Fired former acting FBI chief says Patel tied job security to purging agents linked to Trump probes
May 12, 2026 6:00 AM ET / CNN
By Isabelle Khurshudyan, Anderson Cooper
Brian Driscoll speaks with CNN.
CNN
A week before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, Brian Driscoll, a decorated FBI special agent, received a series of calls that alarmed him. He was being offered the No. 2 job at the FBI and was told that if he didn’t take it, a political appointee would likely get the role. Driscoll didn’t think that was an acceptable alternative, so he hesitantly agreed.
But then came the vetting process, Driscoll says, which raised more concerns.
Over the next few days, Driscoll says he was asked a series of questions by incoming Trump officials about his personal politics, including who he voted for, when he started supporting Trump, and whether he’d voted for a Democrat in recent elections.
At one point, according to Driscoll, incoming FBI Director Kash Patel told him the vetting wouldn’t be an issue so long as he wasn’t active on social media, didn’t donate to the Democratic Party, and didn’t vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” says Driscoll, who became acting director of the FBI for a month before Patel was confirmed in the job. Patel eventually fired Driscoll in August 2025, and Driscoll is now suing Patel and the Trump administration for wrongful termination.
In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Driscoll’s first since being fired last year, the former agent offers fresh details about what he says was a White House-directed purge of the FBI aimed at punishing or removing employees involved in investigations into the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot as well as the probe into Trump’s possession of classified documents after his first term.
STREAMING NOW:Fired former FBI chief claims Patel linked job security to purging agents linked to Trump probes. Upgrade to watch the full report.
In a meeting in Patel’s office after he had been confirmed, Patel told Driscoll that “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,” Driscoll says.
“It was the first time he articulated it that bluntly to me,” Driscoll told CNN, adding that Patel said his own job security as the newly confirmed FBI director depended on removing agents who had worked on cases against Trump.
The Justice Department has moved to dismiss Driscoll’s case. It did not reply to CNN’s request for comment — nor did the FBI or a spokesperson for Patel.
Driscoll points to a key moment when he was asked by Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general at the time, to produce a list of all FBI employees, some 6,000 names, who had been involved in Trump investigations.
Emil Bove testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 25, 2025.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/File
Driscoll told CNN that when he asked Bove why he needed that list of employees, the response he got was that there was “cultural rot in the FBI.”
“I was telling them this is wrong,” Driscoll says.
Driscoll says Bove told him that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller wanted to see firings at the FBI similar to those that had just happened at DOJ, where more than a dozen career federal prosecutors who’d worked with former special counsel Jack Smith on cases against Trump were fired.
Driscoll says Bove then gave him a list of eight field leaders and executive assistant directors to fire who had worked on January 6 investigations. It included several employees who were close to retirement. Driscoll says he pleaded with Bove to let the individuals get to retirement so as not to compromise their pension and benefits. Driscoll received a termination memo for the agents several days later that said they could retire by a certain date or be fired.
Bove was confirmed last year to a lifetime appointment as a federal appellate judge. He did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Driscoll thought of his family, he says, and of whether he could look himself in the mirror and “say I didn’t compromise what I knew was right, and so my actions there forward were easier to a degree.”
That’s when Driscoll sent a bureau-wide email to all 38,000 FBI employees informing them of Bove’s request for additional names involved in January 6 investigations.
“As we’ve said since the moment we agreed to take on these roles, we are going to follow the law, follow FBI policy, and do what’s in the best interest of the workforce and the American people — always,” Driscoll said in the email.
In a follow-up email to FBI staff, Bove accused Driscoll of “insubordination” and wrote that, “No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties.”
Brian Driscoll had been an FBI special agent.
Brian Driscoll
Before his firing, Driscoll had been an FBI special agent for nearly two decades, earning the FBI Medal of Valor and Shield of Bravery for actions under fire. He grew up in New York and was finishing high school when 9/11 happened, and the experience prompted him to pursue a career in law enforcement, he says.
Driscoll says he felt the same kind of “helplessness” as he did on 9/11 when he got the orders to fire experienced agents. He says it was worse than getting shot at in the field.
“You take all of these highly experienced people with the perspective gained through that experience, through success and failure alike, and remove them,” Driscoll told CNN. “It’s devastating to the workforce, not just for the morale, but also the stability of the organization and the faith in it from the people inside of it and the people outside of it.”