When FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen FBI agents and staff last week for their role in the classified documents investigation of Donald Trump, he targeted an elite counter espionage unit that investigates threats from foreign adversaries and specializes in Iran, according to more than a half dozen sources with knowledge of the firings.
The firings came as Patel claimed — without evidence — that the team of FBI agents who investigated Trump’s hoarding of top-secret records at his Mar-a-Lago club had engaged in improper investigative steps.
But his gutting of the global espionage unit, known as CI-12, also came days before Trump launched Operation Epic Fury, a series of bombing strikes on Iran that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A previous bombing strike on Iran ordered by Trump in his first presidency was followed by a series of Iranian operations on U.S. soil to try to assassinate Trump and some of his aides.
CI-12 conducts investigations of illegal media leaks and mishandling of classified documents, but also has veteran agents trained on threats and spy operations with a special focus on the Middle East, including Iran and its proxies, but also Cuba and some terror organizations. It does not investigate threats from China or Russia, which are handled by separate units.
This global espionage team helped uncover numerous counterintelligence threats from foreign governments, including Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and sergeant who began spying for Iran. While working with highly classified U.S. intelligence, prosecutors said, Witt converted to Islam and began spying to aid Iran. She was indicted by a grand jury in 2019 but had defected to Iran and remains a fugitive.
The targeting of the CI-12 unit in last week’s firings was first reported by The New York Sun.
On Monday, people inside the FBI were bracing for the possibility that Patel would fire more agents and staff on CI-12.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson told MS NOW that the FBI does not comment on personnel matters but maintains a “robust counterintelligence operation, with personnel all over the country, who delivered record results in 2025, including a 35% increase in counterintelligence arrests, six of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives captured, and multiple foiled terrorism plots just in December alone.”
He added, “Our teams remain fully engaged across the country and prepared to mobilize any security assets needed to assist federal partners — as well as state and local law enforcement.”
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.