By Steve Neavling
A former FBI official who helped lead the bureau’s probe into Chinese tech giant Huawei says he was forced out after Trump-appointed leadership questioned his friendship with a former agent critical of the president.
Michael Feinberg, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI’s Norfolk field office, told The Atlantic he resigned in late May rather than face demotion and a polygraph over his ties to Peter Strzok, the former counterintelligence agent fired during Trump’s presidency.
Feinberg, who speaks Mandarin and served 15 years in the bureau, said Trump’s appointees, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, “have no idea what they’re doing” and are “playing dress up.”
“I love my country and our Constitution with a fervor that mere language will not allow me to articulate, and it pains me that my profession will no longer entail being their servant,” Feinberg wrote in his resignation letter, according to The Atlantic.
In a Lawfare essay earlier this month, Feinberg warned the FBI is becoming more focused on “ideological purity and the ceaseless politicization of the workforce,” which he said “makes us all less safe.”
He said he joined the FBI in 2009 to protect U.S. interests and uphold the rule of law but now worries the bureau is drifting from its mission. He raised concern that few, if any, senior counterintelligence officials speak Mandarin.
“It’s particularly concerning to me, as someone who dedicated his professional career to combating the Chinese Communist Party and all of its tentacles, to see resources and efforts diverted away from hostile foreign intelligence services and other serious threats to the homeland to focus on minor immigration status offenses,” he wrote.
The FBI canceled Feinberg’s promotion after learning he remained friends with Strzok, a target of Trump’s fury during the Russia investigation. Feinberg said former colleagues asked him to speak out because they fear retaliation.
Bongino and Patel have also come under scrutiny in recent weeks for pushing unsubstantiated claims about Jeffrey Epstein, only for the Trump administration to later reject those conspiracy theories.
