By Steve Neavling
The FBI has reassigned several agents who were photographed kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press reports.
The reasons for the transfers are unclear, but they come amid widespread personnel changes under FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, both of whom have sought to assure Trump supporters that internal reforms are underway.
“The Director and I are working on a number of significant initiatives to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated,” Bongino wrote recently on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He did not elaborate on which mistakes he was referring to.
Photos from the May 2020 protest showed a group of FBI agents kneeling amid nationwide demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. While some within the bureau viewed the gesture as inappropriate, others described it at the time as a de-escalation tactic. The agents were not disciplined.
The reassignments were first reported by CNN and later confirmed to the Associated Press by two people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters. The FBI declined to comment.
Patel, who was confirmed as director in January, pledged during his confirmation hearing not to “go backwards” or retaliate against perceived political adversaries. But concerns about politicized purges have persisted, especially after reports surfaced that Justice Department officials requested lists of agents involved in investigations tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
