FBI agents working on President Donald Trump’s Washington D.C. crime crackdown are raising serious concerns about their safety and ability to conduct future investigations. According to Newsweek, nine current and former FBI employees told Reuters that the high-profile police work is exposing the bureau’s unmarked vehicles and potentially compromising sensitive national security operations.
The agents worry that criminals, foreign spies, and gang members can now identify their covert cars. This makes it harder for them to track drug traffickers, violent gangs, and hostile nations in the future. The surge has forced FBI agents who normally work behind the scenes to patrol D.C. streets in tactical gear, getting out of unmarked vehicles that are now “burned” for future undercover work.
FBI leadership strongly disagrees with these concerns. “The claims represent a basic misunderstanding of how FBI security protocol works,” Ben Williamson, assistant director of the FBI public affairs office, said in response to the agents’ worries. He added that the agency uses “multiple safeguards to protect agents in the field against threats so they can continue doing their great work protecting the American people.”
Agents fear blown covers as Trump expands crackdown
The unmarked vehicle problem began when Trump took federal control of D.C. police in August 2025. The president deployed up to 1,000 FBI vehicles during highly visible arrests and patrols across the city. Current FBI employees say this puts agents at greater risk when dealing with cartels, gangs, and foreign intelligence services who actively try to identify federal agents.
“Every time you see us getting out of covert cars wearing our FBI vests that car is burned,” one current FBI employee said. “We can’t use these cars to go undercover, we can’t use them to surveil narcotraffickers and fentanyl suppliers or Russian or Chinese spies or use them to go after violent criminal gangs or terrorists.”
Senator John Cornyn and other Senate GOP members held a press conference to highlight President Trump’s successful crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C.
— The National Desk (@TND) September 4, 2025
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The agents are particularly worried because Trump has talked about expanding this type of federal crackdown to other major cities like Chicago and Baltimore. Such expansion would “burn through” even more critical agency assets that take years to develop and cost taxpayers significant money to replace. John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security coordinator, warned that highly visible enforcement actions could “unwittingly compromise the ability of those same personnel to go back and engage in sensitive investigations.”
The FBI has already committed about 120 agents from its Washington Field Office to work alongside local police and federal agencies on D.C. streets. These agents have been pulled away from their regular work on terrorism, violent crime, public corruption, and cybercrime cases. While some agents volunteered for the assignment, others were simply ordered to report for street duty as part of Trump’s broader crime fighting strategy.
FBI Director Kash Patel has publicly supported the operation, posting on social media that his agents made 10 arrests during their “first big push” to help make D.C. safe. However, the concerned agents argue that short-term arrests for minor offenses are not worth the long-term damage to national security investigations. They point out that replacing burned vehicles and rebuilding cover identities takes considerable time and resources that could be better spent on more serious threats to public safety.
