Patel Fires FBI Agents, Ends CR-15 Squad After Learning Jack Smith Tracked GOP Senators
Patel also said the FBI “initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead.”
FBI Director Kash Patel announced he fired the agents and dismantled the squad after learning former Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked eight GOP senators while investigating then-former President Donald Trump.
Patel wrote on X:
Transparency is important and accountability is critical. We promised both, and this is what promises kept looks like. This FBI is delivering.
As a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we have already taken the following actions:We terminated employees, we abolished the weaponized CR-15 squad, and we initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead.
Transparency is important and accountability is critical. We promised both, and this is what promises kept looks like. This FBI is delivering.
As a result of our latest disclosure about the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI, we…— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 7, 2025
But will the DOJ take action against Smith? That’s my big question.
The CR-15 squad is a federal public corruption squad. It helped Smith during the Arctic Frost investigation, which involved Trump allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and the Capitol Hill Riot.
In May, Patel said he folded the squad and reassigned the agents. I’m unsure if today’s comments indicate that the FBI will no longer have another CR-15 squad.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) revealed the tracking memo on Monday. Smith tracked these eight senators:
- Marsha Blackburn (TN)
- Lindsey Graham (SC)
- Bill Hagerty (TN)
- Josh Hawley (MO)
- Ron Johnson (WI)
- Mike Kelly (PA)
- Cynthia Lummis (WY)
- Tommy Tuberville (AL)
The September 27, 2023, memo titled CAST [Cellular Analysis Survey Team] Assistance stated that an FBI agent “conducted preliminary toll analysis on limited tolls records associated with” the listed senators.
One official told Fox News that the FBI collected the telephone records after Smith’s team subpoenaed the telephone companies.
Another official said Smith’s team could “see which phone numbers they called, the location the phone call originated and the location where it was received.”
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Comments
Did they lose their pensions and lifetime Cadillac level medical care? Or were these firings a wink and a nod?
And will they be immediately hired by either the DNC or some private Leftist Stasi organization to continue their work?
Subotai Bahadur
Was the number of agents fired greater than the number of Senators spied on?
They should have been firings with Orange jumpsuits.
I’m thinking firings with squads and I don’t mean muslim women politicians.
Well done, continue the purge of political operatives please.
Surprised to this comment from you. I understand some bad apples in the FBI targeted Catholics. Rather thought you’d be all on board for that.
these were not “some bad apples” this was the FBI! Remember, if there were any honest FBI agents, there wouldn’t be any corrupt FBI agents
Foe what I gather the bad apples were in the Washington DC office while the good ones tended to be out at the periphery offices. They makes sense. Closeness to power seems corrupt as does the power itself. If this dynamic continues what this argues for is decentralization of much of the federal government spreading it out through all 50 states.
Never heard of “CR-15” until this post. Can anyone elaborate?
Yes. It is an evil instrument of death with high capacity magazine clips that can firse 8 million rounds per second.
I hear there is a gun show loophole where you can 3D print a ghost version of it too. No ID required!
Magazine clip? Oh..is it that thing a hand held rail gun uses?
And a shoulder thing that goes up.
“CR-15 unit (or squad or group)” established to investigate “public corruption”. “CR” possibly stands for, as in other LE settings, “chronological record”; or in current matter “corruption record” of “cellular records”.
I was unable to determine when the CR-15 unit was formed; “Arctic Frost” began in April 2022(?). Or, what the “15” might refer to.
It is curious that a ready answer is not available.
I wonder if they get special uniforms, or neat little decoder rings like the Masons?
Where did Jack Smith get the authority to assign work to the FBI?
From the top: George Soros.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll still give an opinion and let the legal eagles opine. Jack Smith was illegally appointed as adjudicated by Judge Cannon. Therefore his illegal request for surveillance could be a felony. The transfer of the surveillance to the J6 committee could be furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the government. What these sequence of events does is set up a separation of powers constitutional crisis. The FBI CR15 group followed unlawful orders knowingly. They too have become part of the furtherance of a conspiracy and potentially criminal committed multiple felonies. Since the this was driven by Smith in Florida it’s only right that a grand jury in Florida is convened to hear testimony. Put Ed Martin on it! Drop the hammer Pam. Show the world you’re more than a pretty face in a pants suit. Today’s Senate hearing was a good start.
I’m not so sure. The independent counsel statute is a thing and at the time I don’t think anyone was suing saying he was appointed illegally. It would be more logical to go after who appointed him unless whatever that pos did was outside the authority that statute gives him.
This is why Kash’s strategy is doomed to fail to reform the FBI. He should’ve come in like Elon Musk, demanding everybody sent a piece of mail justifying what they did every day. Then he could’ve fired most of the dross on day ten, and built it back up from there.
Ok fine, but if there aren’t any real, permanent structural changes, the FBI will be up to the same tricks as soon as another democrat administration lies, cheats and steals itself into office. The FBI needs to be dismantled and reconstituted, or at least some kind of reorganization that addresses its abuses of power. Otherwise, this is just cosmetic.
I suspect there is plenty going on even with Patel in place. The entire organization is a cesspit.
Let’s have names of the agents.,
“Patel Fires FBI Agents…”
Did he?
“We terminated employees” – FBI employs a lot of people. The overwhelming majority of whom are NOT “FBI Agents”.
Ever heard of an FBI Agent getting fired this quickly, literally one day after new information is revealed? Yeah, me neither. They get reassigned, or in extreme cases suspended, and then there’s a several months long investigation. And, eventually, there’s a maybe 1% chance of actually being fired.
The squad was disbanded and agents fired back in May when the corruption was first discovered.
Actually, I don’t know when the agents were fired but the corruption was discovered in May.
I remember in the very early 1970s how the Left hated the FBI and wanted to have it abolished until someone got the evil idea rather than abolish the FBI that we (the Neo Marxists) need to co-opt them and have them be our version of the NKVD.
These sorts of stories seem to always be filled with the vaguenesses that leave you shaking your head.
“monitoring of members of Congress” now seems to mean that the FBI accessed the metadata of their phone calls between Jan-5 and Jan-8.
While in one sense this is spying, this sort of spying was done on nearly anyone in the vicinity of the Capitol building on Jan-6-2021.