By Steve Neavling
President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., is exposing the FBI’s fleet of unmarked cars and potentially jeopardizing its ability to conduct sensitive national security and surveillance operations, according to nine current and former employees of the bureau, Reuters reports.
The surge, promoted by the White House as a crackdown on violent crime but resulting in many arrests for minor offenses, has pulled FBI agents into routine police work in highly visible areas. Agents have been seen in tactical gear, climbing out of unmarked cars, which employees say could compromise those vehicles for future undercover investigations.
“Every time you see us getting out of covert cars wearing our FBI vests that car is burned,” one current FBI employee told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Another said, “We can’t use these cars to go undercover, we can’t use them to surveil narcotraffickers and fentanyl suppliers or Russian or Chinese spies or use them to go after violent criminal gangs or terrorists.”
An FBI spokesman dismissed the concerns.
“The claims in this story represents a basic misunderstanding of how FBI security protocol works — the Bureau takes multiple safeguards to protect agents in the field against threats so they can continue doing their great work protecting the American people,” Ben Williamson, assistant director of the FBI’s public affairs office, said in an email. “FBI leadership hasn’t received any of the concerns alleged here, and anyone who did have a good faith concern would approach leaders at headquarters or our Washington Field Office rather than laundering bizarre claims through the press.”
John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism coordinator, said the tactic could backfire.
“They’re putting federal agents in a more highly visible situation where they’re driving their undercover cars and they’re engaging in highly visible public enforcement action or patrol actions,” he said. “They may be unwittingly compromising the ability of those same personnel to go back and engage in sensitive investigations.”
The White House referred questions to the FBI.
