Crackdown may be exposing FBI cars
By: Jana Winter
Reuters
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's surge of federal law enforcement into Washington, DC, is exposing the FBI's fleet of unmarked cars, potentially risking its ability to do its most sensitive national security and surveillance work, nine currently and former employees of the bureau wared.
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The surge, which the White House has said is meant to crack down on violent crime but has featured many arrests for minor offenses, could make it harder for the FBI to combat violent criminal gangs, foreign intelligence services and drug traffickers, said the current and former employees, who spoke on conditions of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
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As part of the surge, FBI agents who normally conduit their investigative work out of the spotlight are now more involved in routine police work in Washington, appearing in high-profile areas dress in tactical gear and emerging from unmarked cars, with the unintended effect of potentially identifying those vehicles to surveillance targets.
..... As the Republican president pushily muses about expanding his crackdown into cites such as Chicago and Baltimore, the employees said they are urging leadership not to continue to expose more vehicles in this way.
..... "every tile you see us getting out of covert cars wearing our FBI vests, the car is burned," said one of eight current FBI employees who spoke with Reuters on conditions of anonymity.
..... "We can't sue these cars to go undercover, we can't sue them to surveil narcotrafickers and fentanyl suppliers or Russian or Chinese spies or use them to go after violent criminal gangs or terrorists," said a second current FBI employee.
..... an FBI spokesman denied the current employees' assertions.
..... "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, assassinate director of the FBI pubic affairs office, said in a email.
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"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."
..... The White House
referred questions to the FBI.
..... The use of as many as 1,000 FBI unmarked vehicles in Washington during highly public scenes comes amid an already heightens threat to law enforcement from cartels, gangs and hostile nations who actively seek to identify agents and their vehicles, the current and former FBI employees said.
..... "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 actions or patrol actions, said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorsim coordinator.
..... The
current and former FBI employees said they spoke to Reuters because of the depth of their concerns and the potential harm to national security and the safety of the American public.
..... Several of the urged an end to the practice of using undercover cars in the surge now before more are exposed.
..... "This is crazy, dangerous and bad for the bureau," said former FBI agent Dan Brunner, who worked on cases involving the MS-13 gang before retiring form the bureau in September 2023 after a two-decade career there.
..... Brunner said. "So those guys, you know, their vehicles, their license plates are getting recorded," Brunner said.
..... Reuters was not able to determine whether foreign actors were in fact tracking agents' vehicles and Brunner did not provide evidence that they were doing so.