FBI Director Kash Patel has ordered a roughly 25 percent cut to the bureau’s Office of General Counsel, the legal division responsible for ensuring investigations remain lawful, according to multiple sources familiar with the directive released in early August 2026.
General Counsel Samuel Ramer has begun implementing the reduction through early retirement offers, and the office has also contemplated terminations, the sources told Bloomberg Law. The Office of General Counsel encompasses several hundred lawyers who advise FBI executives and agents, respond to lawsuits against the bureau, and coordinate legal matters with Department of Justice prosecutors.
The timing intensifies pressure on the legal division as the FBI defends itself against multiple lawsuits filed by fired agents. Three agents who worked on investigations involving former President Trump sued Patel and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in March 2026, alleging their First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated through politically motivated terminations. An association of thousands of FBI agents and other groups backed the lawsuit in August 2026, according to PBS NewsHour.
Patel’s team had previously instructed Ramer to fire one of his attorneys at random to send a message, though the instruction never resulted in action, Bloomberg Law reported. The move signals deepening tensions between the director and his general counsel, who assumed the role in February 2025 after serving in Trump’s first administration and initially urged his team not to obstruct the director’s agenda.
FBI attorneys have already stepped back from their traditional practice of recommending against particular actions, several people told Bloomberg Law. An FBI spokesperson, Ben Williamson, denied that Ramer’s relationship with Patel was strained, stating that “all divisions within the FBI are undergoing long overdue reorganizations” as part of an efficiency push. When asked about the instruction to fire an attorney, Williamson said: “If individuals are found to have undermined the mission, acted unethically, or engaged in weaponization, they will no longer have a job at the Bureau.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint that shaped the Trump administration’s second-term agenda, calls for eliminating the Office of General Counsel entirely and assigning Department of Justice lawyers to handle legal reviews for the FBI instead. The 2025 plan argued that “moving legal review outside the FBI would serve as a crucial check on an agency that has recently pushed past legal boundary after legal boundary,” according to Bloomberg Law’s review of the document.
Retired FBI supervisory special agent Dan Brunner told Bloomberg Law that the Office of General Counsel team was “vital in making sure that the agents conducting investigations were always within the guidelines” and cautioned against dismissing their role. “Our lawyers at the FBI were incredibly important, and any pushback that they’re doing at OGC against Kash Patel, it isn’t personal,” Brunner said. “It’s because there are rules that potentially could be broken.”
The cuts also follow earlier disruptions to the legal office’s operations. The FBI canceled offers to field office lawyers who had accepted transfers to the headquarters-based general counsel’s office, and a legal training conference for FBI attorneys nationwide was canceled on short notice, according to people familiar with the decisions.
Sources
- Bloomberg Law — detailed reporting on Patel’s order to cut OGC staff by 25%, tensions with General Counsel Ramer, the instruction to fire an attorney at random, and Project 2025’s elimination proposal
- Yahoo News UK / Daily Beast — reporting on the 25 percent cut order and context on Patel’s prior purges of agents
- PBS NewsHour — coverage of the August 2026 lawsuit backing by thousands of FBI agents and groups
- Reuters — reporting on the March 2026 lawsuit filed by ex-FBI agents over constitutional violations
