An annual survey of FBI employees found a sharp decline in confidence in bureau leadership amid a series of scandals, results published Sunday indicate.
Although pride in working at the FBI remained about the same, faith in the “honesty and integrity” of senior executives plummeted — going from an average employee rating of more than four out of five in 2017 to 3.5 out of five this year at the FBI’s 56 field offices.
Workers at FBI headquarters in Washington reported a slightly less dramatic erosion of faith in leaders’ honesty.
The survey data was collected in February and March amid significant internal uncertainty about the fate of top leaders including then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Strzok, the former deputy assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, helped lead investigations of Hillary Clinton’s private email server and possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia. He was removed last year from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and remains under review for sending anti-Trump messages to former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
McCabe was fired in March after the Justice Department’s inspector general found he lied to FBI agents and former FBI Director James Comey about authorizing a leak about the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation.
But the survey suggests an even sharper erosion of faith in the FBI’s director, currently Christopher Wray, who took office last year after Comey was fired by President Trump for alleged wrongdoing during the Clinton emails investigation.
Support for the director’s “vision and ideas” tanked from about 4.5 out of five in 2016 to about 3.5 in 2018 at the bureau’s field offices, with only slightly less dramatic drop at FBI headquarters.
Comey ostensibly was fired for inappropriate actions during the Clinton email probe — including usurping the standard prosecutorial process to recommend against charges, and airing derogatory information about Clinton — but Trump also noted in an interview he considered “this Russia thing” in making his decision.
The survey data was not voluntarily released this year, leading to a lawsuit filed by the group Protect Democracy on behalf of Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes, a personal friend of Comey. Wittes published the results Sunday.
