President Donald Trump's administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from top U.S. law enforcement agencies, according to Justice Department records obtained by Reuters. The reductions come despite Trump's campaign promises to restore 'law and order' across the country.
The FBI has lost over 2,600 staff, more than seven percent of its workforce since the 2024 fiscal year. The Drug Enforcement Administration shed about six percent of workers, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives saw a drop of more than double that figure. Within the main Justice Department, the national security division lost over a third of its staff and the civil rights division more than half, with about 7,000 DOJ jobs remaining unfilled.
Critics argue the cuts undermine national security and crime prevention. 'The administration talks a big game when it comes to crime and terrorism, but the fact that it’s hollowing out agencies tasked with addressing them shows that they don’t stand behind their words,' said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer. The administration has pursued measures to shrink government, including Elon Musk's DOGE programme and purges of officials tied to past investigations into Trump. Some staff have resigned in protest, such as during a deadly immigration operation in Minneapolis.
DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre defended the cuts, stating: 'Our country has the lowest murder rate in 125 years, we’ve arrested more than 90 key cartel leaders and removed millions of deadly doses of fentanyl from our streets... This is the most efficient Department of Justice in American history.' She added that career employees were given a 'fork in the road' option to leave if they did not want to aggressively tackle crime.
In 2025, federal drug crime charges fell to their lowest level in decades, while border crossings hit multi-decade lows and homicides are expected to show a record drop. However, the DOJ dropped more than 23,000 criminal cases without prosecution in the first six months after Trump took office, including nearly 11,000 in February 2025 alone—the most in a single month since at least 2004. The cuts have also affected elite units; FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly fired a dozen agents from a global spy-monitoring unit just before the Iran war began, agents who had been involved in past investigations into Trump.
The turmoil has reached the top levels of federal law enforcement, with the White House firing the attorney general and homeland security secretary in the last two months. Patel himself is embroiled in a legal battle with The Atlantic magazine over reports that he is paranoid, frequently absent, and regularly intoxicated—claims he denies and has sued over.
