https://www.reuters.com/world/trumps-doj-has-cut-thousands-law-enforcement-jobs-while-vowing-get-tough-crime-2026-04-23/WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from some of the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies, even as it vowed to crack down on crime, according to records obtained by Reuters.The records, from the U.S. Justice Department’s management unit, show that the total number of employees at the FBI has dropped more than 7% since the government’s 2024 fiscal year, a loss of about 2,600 people. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s staff has dropped by about 6%, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost about 14% of its workers.Other parts of the Justice Department shrank even more rapidly. Its National Security Division, which handles intelligence and terrorism matters, lost nearly 38% of its staff, the department’s records show. The division’s most recent budget request to Congress noted “unprecedented personnel constraints” in the unit that handles cases involving espionage and the export of sensitive military technology."It’s the difference between being proactive and entrepreneurial or purely reactive to the most obvious imperative of the day," Adam Hickey, a former senior official in the National Security Division, said of the loss of staff.Those records, which Reuters obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, offer the most detailed accounting to date of the extent to which the Trump administration has downsized some of the nation’s premier law-enforcement agencies.Those agencies have traditionally handled the government’s highest-profile criminal investigations, including efforts to combat terrorism, deter drug traffickers and keep guns away from criminals.
Other records, including detailed information about people who left government jobs, show an increasing pace of departures from law-enforcement agencies after Trump began his second term in January 2025.“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 who leads Justice Connection, a group that supports staff leaving the department.That contraction, combined with an increased focus on immigration, has caused authorities to pull back from some of their typical work, interviews and agency records show. Last year, for example, federal prosecutions for drug trafficking dropped to their lowest level in more than two decades.The government is bringing even fewer such cases this year, Reuters found after reviewing millions of federal court dockets from Westlaw, a legal research service that is a division of Thomson Reuters.Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said, without offering evidence, that buyouts last year allowed the agency to shed people who “did not want to aggressively and faithfully tackle crime to protect the American people.”She said that at a time when the U.S. murder rate has fallen to its lowest rate in recent history, “any suggestion that this reduction in force has hampered our ability to tackle violent crime is not based in reality.”The Trump administration has made deep cuts across the federal government, beginning last year in the first months of his presidency. One of the few exceptions was the arm of the government that handles immigration enforcement, which secured billions of dollars in additional funding as the administration pressed to deport more people.
Trump-appointed officials have also fired or forced out dozens of federal prosecutors and agents who worked on investigations of the president and his political allies, and have launched a series of new cases targeting his adversaries.Justice Department officials have defended Trump’s ability to influence investigations and assailed past investigations into the president and his allies as a misuse of the legal system. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said Trump has a right and duty as president to influence investigations, even into political foes.The records Reuters obtained show the number of filled and unfilled positions in each section of the Justice Department as of early April. All told, they show that the department employs around 107,000 people, about 11,200 fewer people than it did during the fiscal year that ended three months before Trump began his second term.The cuts came amid both an administration effort to shrink government and upheaval at the Justice Department, where thousands of workers have taken buyouts. Officials also have struggled to fill some of those jobs, leaving about 7,000 positions unfilled, the records show.“The department has been filled with career public servants with specialized expertise who have served Republican and Democratic administrations over years or decades and to cut that workforce is a huge disservice to our communities and our country,” said Amy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research organization, and former department official.The section responsible for environmental law lost about a third of its staff. And the department’s Civil Rights Division lost more than half.
And the Bureau of Prisons – which the Justice Department’s internal watchdog has said is in a “staffing crisis” – shed more than 2,200 employees, about 6% of its workforce. The number of inmates in federal custody has remained largely unchanged.As a result, some guard posts have gone empty and others have been staffed with teachers and nurses pulled from their regular positions, one prison official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Tough on crime? More like tough on enforcement!
>>1508610Just buy a gun says Trump Administration.
Tough on poor crime, rich crime is let off the hook
So Trump is defunding the police now
>>1508610>The records, from the U.S. Justice Department’s management unit, show that the total number of employees at the FBI has dropped more than 7% since the government’s 2024 fiscal year, a loss of about 2,600 people. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s staff has dropped by about 6%, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost about 14% of its workers.How many arrests did these workers make?Firing people who are desk jockeys doesn't raise the rate of crime, it raises the backlog of paperwork
>>1508632>Firing people who are desk jockeys doesn't raise the rate of crime, it raises the backlog of paperwork...which then reduces the amount of people actually arresting criminals, because that paperwork has to be done.
>>1508642Or you can reduce the bureaucracy
>>1508642Does it?If we produce 5 pieces of paperwork instead of 8 when deporting a criminal, what is being lost?
Unless we would know what the position(s) held by those laid off, who's to say it wasn't menial jobs, like making sure someone didn't build a gun a quarter inch too short, or entrapping people on Facebook groups? However, while my disdain for most of the agencies do create a bit of a bias, I'm all for a reduction in government size. Although, let's be fair, that money "saved" is just going to fund some other pointless project, or just continue to line some pockets at the top.
>>1508646>when deporting a criminalNot even criminal is deported retard.Also, too many paperwork mistakes can kill entire trials.
>>1508646The entire case because their defense attorney will have an absolute field day with your mismanaged paperwork. Do it right or don't do it at all.
>>1508654https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-prosperity-through-deregulation/Trump eliminated 10 pieces of regulation for each new regulation. Trump is eliminating burdensome regulation, and firing the bureaucrats required to fill that paperwork out
>>1508654>their defense attorney will have an absolute field dayDeport them too. Most technicalities or typos won't kill a case.
>>1508657>Trump is eliminating burdensome regulation, and firing the bureaucrats required to fill that paperwork out AKa:CHAOS, libertarian fool.The $ saved from these law enforcement reductions is being funneled into tRump's brown shirts aKA I.C.E.
>>1508646>I've arbitrarily decided four brakes is too many. What would we lose by having one break on one wheel? From now on cars should only have breaks on their steering wheels.This is how retarded you sound.
If we need to clear payroll, we can abolish ICE.
>>1508664After living through COVID-19 Lockdowns, I doubt the ability of big government to solve problemsI feel like I was being lied to constantly, when Fauci announced that we only needed to lock down for 15 days, or Joe Biden claiming "if you are vaccinated you can't catch covid and you can't spread covid"
>>1508657He is simply allowing the rich and powerful to walk all over the majority of AMERICA. Not very American, if you ask me.
>>1508631Holy fuck, you’re right.>>1508632You have have a child’s understanding of law enforcement. Or of any large organization, really.
>>1508657This literally makes it harder for prosecutors because they have to get into deeper specifics for what laws or regulations criminals broke.
>>1508610they should cut moreclearly there haven't been nearly enough cuts
>>1508736So?
>>1508739So it literally makes it easier for criminals to escape charges.
>>1508763OK and?
>>1508710If someone told you the vaccine was magic and would prevent you from catching or spreading covid, and you believed them, then you're fucking retarded, and don't even pass middle school biology.Nobody made that claim. It isn't a serious claim. The actual claim is that being vaccinated reduces your risk of spreading the disease, risk of death, and the severity of your illness. Because that's how vaccines work.You're correct, guidelines changed multiple times. Part of the reason for that is you retarded mother fuckers just weren't following them and people were dying, so the CDC kept revising and releasing modified guidelines in the hopes you fucking brainlets would at least do the bare fucking minimum to protect yourselves and the people around you.Fuck you dumbass, for not being able to wear a mask to save people's lives, but being able to wear it to brutalize brown people. I hope you get gang-raped to death by immigrants with covid at a pet barbecue, killed by your retarded paranoid delusions in the first grade educated fantasy land you dream about being persecuted in.
>>1508887>Nobody made that claim.0/10 troll, fuck off.
>>1508887>Nobody made that claim. It isn't a serious claim.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciwyYnwYFaQ
>>1508926>>1508934Cool, an old guy was confused and got something wrong. If you're going to him for health advice, you're fucking retarded. If you're using this as a basis to ignore the fact getting vaccinated reduced severity and mortality of covid, you're still fucking retarded.
>>1508940He's not an old guy who did something wrong.He was the president of the United States, and used incorrect assumptions for the foundation of his strategy. "If you get vaccinated you can't catch covid and you can't spread covid" turned out to be wrong, and his covid plan didn't work
>>1508948you're not american and you need a real job
>>1508948>"If you get vaccinated you can't catch covid and you can't spread covid" turned out to be wrong, and his covid plan didn't work>It wasn't 100% so it didn't workPerfect solution fallacy.
>>1508948trump is a lying retard, and you shouldn't blindly believe anything he says.If he says the sky is blue, you should go check.
>>1508940>an old guyIt wasn't just Biden. It was Faucci, the entire pharmaceutical industry, the mainstream media, and a bunch of regulatory federal bodies that made life hell for anybody that didn't have the numerous boosters they demanded everybody take.Sure is weird that the far-left was silent on big pharma using American taxdollars to extort the American people.
>>1508954>Sure is weird that the far-left was silent on big pharma using American taxdollars to extort the American people.The vaccine was free lmao.
>>1508954when did they say that?
>>1508954god you're esl
>>1508952https://i.imgur.com/Abf2J4Z.pngBy Biden's his own standards he wasn't fit to stand office
>>1508959how are you too dumb to use this text only board
>>1508959Biden actually listened to experts. Trump downplayed the pandemic and decided to put travel restrictions based on racism instead of actually preventing the pandemic (he didn't block anyone from the US from returning home)
>>1508956Free to the public=/=Freehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9975718/The US government invested at least $31.9 billion in the development, production, and purchase of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines through March 2022, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study. This funding, largely through BARDA and the Department of Defense, supported clinical trials, manufacturing, and advanced purchase agreements to make vaccines available for free to the public.
>>1508960Don't beat them up too much, the shills boss just knows that 4chan is an image board, so they assigned them images they need to uploadIts not their fault their boss gave them an impossible taskGood on ya for engaging and helping them meet their metrics
>>1508959how was he responsible for those deaths?
>>1508964hunter biden?
>>1508964Donald Trump was responsible for 220,000 deaths. That is how many people died from COVID-19 under his watch.Joe Biden was responsible for 800,000 deaths. That is how many people died from COVID-19 under his watchBy Biden's his own standards he wasn't fit to stand office
>>1508961https://youtu.be/eFCzoXhNM6cI remember Nancy Pelosi encouraging mass gatherings in Chinatown saying that the COVID 19 virus shouldn't discourage people from making their way out there. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/30/fact-check-did-biden-call-trump-xenophobic-for-china-travel-restrictions/986308007/Biden called Trump xenophobic for trying to ban Travel from China in February of 2020
>>1508973how was biden responsible for them? what did he do?
>>1508974What was the current known details about the virus at that time?
>>1508975Biden should have understood that MIGA are extremely retarded and not asked them to protect themselvesAt that point they had no choice but to kill themselves rather than listen to the objectively correct advise from a Democrat
>>1508975https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1319446692236791814Joe Biden said Donald Trump was responsible for 220,000 Covid Deaths, because he was president when they died. He said having that many people die under your watch was disqualifying800,000 people died of Covid while Joe Biden was presidenthttps://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
>>1508983And? Biden was rightTrump let Covid kill millions of Americans by denying science, letting MIGA spread the disease, and discounting an actual vaccine in lieu of boofing horse paste
>>1508984If Biden was right that having 220,000 people die of COVID meant that you should not remain President of the United States, why did he never resign? Even when 800,000 Americans died of Covid under his watch?
>>1508985COVID ended when Biden won.
>>1508985Its rough being as stupid as you are, isn't it? Don't worry though, you are right that 220,000 < 800,000.
>>1508983>Biden was responsible for the pandemic Trump helped start Sorry he didn't use his magical powers to cure it overnight.
>>1509005Biden was responsible for the United States covid policy as of January 20th, 2021.Over the next 4 years, 800,000 people died of COVID-19 under his watch. Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain the President of the United States
>>1509006>By this logic, I believe Trump should be impeached for canceling USAID. I don't though, I don't engage with facts, I have bds.Cool, so do I.
>>1509006>Someone sets a house on fire right before you would own it>"Oh my god I can't believe you're responsible for this fire"
