WASHINGTON — The head of the FBI's New York field office was forced out Monday, a month after he urged his employees to "dig in" after the Trump administration removed senior FBI leaders and requested the names of all agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, five sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
In an email to FBI staff members in New York on Monday, James Dennehy confirmed that he had been ordered to leave.
"Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did," Dennehy wrote. "I was not given a reason for this decision."
Two of the sources said Dennehy was given a choice to resign or be fired.
Last month, Dennehy wrote an email to his staff after the Trump Justice Department, led by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, demanded a list of all bureau employees who had worked on criminal cases against Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own as good people are being walked out of the FBI,” Dennehy wrote. “And others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.”
“Time for me to dig in,” Dennehy said.
Dennehy was referring to the ouster of eight veteran FBI leaders, including the head of the Washington field office, who played roles in the criminal investigations of President Donald Trump while he was out of office. Trump administration officials also requested the names of all agents who had worked on Jan. 6 cases.
It is widely believed inside the FBI that the resistance by Dennehy — along with the acting director, Brian Driscoll, and the acting deputy director, Rob Kissane — prevented a mass firing of thousands of FBI officials who worked on the Jan. 6 cases. Dennehy’s removal is likely to reignite fears of mass retaliation.
Role in Adams investigation
Dennehy also praised the federal corruption investigation of New York Mayor Eric Adams. After Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges last year, Dennehy said at a news conference that corruption by public officials was particularly corrosive because it undermines public trust in government.
“The indictment of a sitting mayor is not just another headline,” he said. “It is a stinging reminder that no one is above the law or beyond reproach, and it serves as a sobering moment for all of us who place our trust in elected officials.”
Last month, Trump administration officials ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop the corruption charges against Adams. In a stunning public rebuke, seven federal prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned and refused to follow the order.
They accused the new administration of agreeing to a quid pro quo whereby the charges against Adams would be dropped if he agreed to support Trump's immigration policies. Trump Justice Department officials and Adams' lawyer denied that any such agreement had been reached.
In his farewell email to colleagues Monday, Dennehy urged FBI employees to act with integrity, maintain the independence of the FBI and not allow politics to play a role in criminal investigations.
"As I leave today, I have an immense feeling of pride — to have represented an office of professionals who will always do the right thing for the right reasons; who will always seek the truth while upholding the rule of law," he wrote. "Who will always handle cases and evidence with an overabundance of caution and care for the innocent, the victims, and the process first; and who will always remain independent."
Dennehy spent six years in the Marine Corps before he joined the FBI after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. At the bureau, he specialized in weapons counter-proliferation and spent time in management roles in both the Washington and New York field offices before he took over the FBI's field office in Newark, New Jersey, in 2022 and then was promoted to lead the New York office last year.
Unease in the FBI
Dennehy's ouster comes amid intense unease in the bureau. Trump has promised to fire “some” FBI agents who he said, without citing specific evidence, were “corrupt.”
Trump, who pardoned all Jan. 6 defendants after he took office, has ignored norms put in place at the FBI after longtime director J. Edgar Hoover had agents surveil and smear political groups he viewed as subversive.
To prevent the FBI from meddling in politics, FBI directors have been appointed to 10-year terms since then and expected to conduct criminal investigations independent of political pressure. Legal experts fear that Trump will politicize the Justice Department and the FBI and use them to retaliate against his perceived enemies.
Trump's new FBI director, Kash Patel, is a former federal prosecutor, congressional staffer and national security official who campaigned for Trump throughout the 2024 election. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Patel testified under oath that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.” The following day, multiple officials FBI were ousted.
The new deputy director, Dan Bongino, is a pro-Trump podcaster and former Secret Service agent and New York City police officer who has accused the FBI of staging the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Agents expressed shock that Bongino would become the first deputy director in its 117-year history who was not a career agent with knowledge of the bureau.
On Friday, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, another Trump loyalist, demoted several top officials, including high-ranking prosecutors who had worked major cases against Jan. 6 rioters.
Trump has nominated Martin — a "stop the steal" organizer who was on the grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6 and represented several Capitol attack defendants — to permanently run the U.S. attorney's office in the nation's capital.
At the conclusion of his farewell message, Dennehy vowed to continue to fight for the FBI's independence. "I will never stop defending this joint," he wrote. "I’ll just do it willingly and proudly from outside the wire."
