A dramatic internal power struggle has erupted inside the Trump administration as U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Judge Jeanine Pirro reportedly stepped in to halt FBI Director Kash Patel’s latest firing spree — blocking the dismissal of four veteran FBI agents who worked on politically sensitive cases tied to the January 6 Capitol riot and former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations.
According to The New York Times and Reuters, Pirro’s intervention came after Patel moved to terminate multiple senior agents — part of what critics describe as his ongoing purge of officials linked to investigations targeting Donald Trump during the prior administration.
The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office argued that Patel’s move would “hamper progress on ongoing criminal cases,” and sources say Pirro personally intervened to keep the agents on payroll until further review.
The standoff now pits two of President Trump’s most high-profile appointees against each other — both known for their loyalty to the president and their hardline stances on law and order. Pirro, the fiery former Fox News host turned federal prosecutor, and Patel, Trump’s handpicked FBI Director, are now locked in what insiders describe as a “tug-of-war” over the agency’s future.
The agents at the center of the controversy — Jeremy Desor, Jamie Garman, Blaire Toleman, and David Geist — were reportedly notified of their terminations earlier this week. All four had worked on cases related to either January 6 defendants or Smith’s 2020 election probes.
But after Pirro’s office raised objections, at least two of those firings — Toleman and Geist — were reversed within 24 hours, Reuters reported.
The shakeup comes as Patel continues what he has called a “long-overdue housecleaning” inside the FBI. Since his appointment, dozens of agents, prosecutors, and DOJ officials who worked on Trump-related cases — including the now-defunct special counsel investigation led by Jack Smith — have been fired or reassigned.
Critics within Washington call it a political purge. Patel insists it’s about accountability.
“Transparency brings accountability,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told Reuters, after releasing more than 1,000 pages of subpoenas and documents from Smith’s office. Grassley said taxpayers “have a right to know how the government’s spending their hard-earned dollars — and if agents were engaged in wrongdoing, they ought to be held accountable.”
Desor, one of the agents now in limbo, has become a lightning rod online after Grassley’s release of those documents, which confirmed the aggressive scope of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s post-2020 election actions.
Patel’s internal critics say the latest wave of terminations went too far, eliminating career officials with valuable institutional knowledge just as the bureau faces several complex national security and corruption cases.
Pirro appears to agree. Her decision to halt the firings — even temporarily — signals a major assertion of power by the Justice Department’s Washington office and a willingness to defy Patel’s increasingly controversial management style.
The clash highlights growing tension not just between Pirro and Patel, but also between the FBI and the Department of Justice under Attorney General **Pam Bondi**, another Trump ally. Patel has reportedly sparred with Bondi over how to handle high-profile investigations, including those involving the **Jeffrey Epstein files** and politically charged immigration cases.
Meanwhile, other senior officials inside the Trump administration — including Border Czar **Tom Homan** and Homeland Security Secretary **Kristi Noem** — have also found themselves at odds over enforcement strategies and personnel decisions, signaling wider fractures within the president’s law-and-order team.
The FBI, which has been under intense scrutiny since Patel’s appointment, has not commented on the reports. The Department of Justice referred all inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., which has yet to issue an official statement.
Patel, for his part, has pushed back on criticism of his leadership and blasted what he called “supposed allies” who failed to defend him after reports surfaced that he used a government aircraft to attend an event with his girlfriend, country singer **Alexis Wilkins**, during the ongoing government shutdown.
Despite those headlines, Patel remains one of the most powerful figures in federal law enforcement — and his willingness to remove agents connected to the Trump-Russia era investigations has made him both a hero to Trump loyalists and a target of entrenched bureaucrats.
But Pirro’s latest move signals that not everyone inside the administration is willing to let Patel operate unchecked.
One senior law enforcement source described the standoff bluntly: “It’s becoming a showdown between two Trump loyalists — and whichever way it goes, it’s going to reshape how justice is handled in Washington.”
For now, the four agents at the center of the controversy are keeping their badges. But the internal rift between Pirro and Patel has opened a new fault line inside an administration already marked by turf wars — one that could determine the direction of the FBI and the Department of Justice for months to come.
