Employees at the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and their fellow travelers at the FBI are apparently “shell-shocked” and updating their resumes following President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide electoral victory.

Federal bureaucrats’ apparent fears of a thorough housecleaning are justified, as Trump has made no secret of his
plan to “shatter the Deep State and restore government that is controlled by the People.”

Background

In March 2023, Trump announced that on day one, he would reissue his 2020
executive order establishing the Schedule F employment category for federal employees, making it easier to remove insubordinate and poorly performing bureaucrats from an estimated pool of 50,000 eligible candidates.

“I will wield that power aggressively,” Trump vowed.

President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s Schedule F in January 2021 and
announced a rule earlier this year aimed at further shielding federal bureaucrats from accountability and from being ousted under a framework resembling Schedule F.

‘They’re getting the hell out of dodge.’

Reversing this rule might take months and involve legal challenges. Nevertheless, Trump appears committed to
ensuring that America’s democratically elected president will once again “have appropriate management oversight regarding this select cadre of professionals.”

Trump also vowed in his 10-point plan to “clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”

“The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute
conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies, which they’re doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible,” said Trump.

Since detailing his cleanup program last year, Trump has
brought on Elon Musk to lead a federal efficiency initiative, which might reinforce the cleanup of deadwood at the Justice Department and its well-armed offshoot.

Reaping the whirlwind

Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker said that bureaucrats at the DOJ and the FBI are right to panic, not only because a “reshuffling of the deck is normal” but because Trump is poised to make good on his pledge to personify and deliver “retribution” for those Americans wronged by what has become an increasingly politicized justice system.

“We know that this panic is happening at the assistant U.S. attorney level and at the U.S. attorney level. These guys are already planning their exits,” said Baker. “They know that their days are numbered. They are looking for their golden parachutes into the big, high-power law firms. They’re getting the hell out of dodge.”

FBI employees are expecting a similar shake-up and pre-emptive exodus.

Several anonymous bureau sources recently
told the Washington Times that the top brass at the FBI were “stunned” and “shell-shocked” by Kamala Harris’ humiliating electoral defeat.

The insiders, convinced that the president-elect will “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” suggested that no one at the supervisory special agent pay grade (GS-14) or higher is safe from losing their jobs, especially not Director Christopher Wray.

“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” said one FBI source. “Trump will say, ‘Yeah, fire his ass. Don’t let him take the plane home.'”

Trump appointed Wray in 2017. While the director’s term is not set to expire for another three years, the president-elect could put him out to pasture.

‘Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.’

FBI employees are apparently also wary about Musk’s efficiency commission.

One source told the Times, “When [Musk] tries to do efficiency at headquarters, the place is going to have five people.”

“Try to find a person that’s actually working,” continued the source. “That may be the biggest problem there — that there’s no efficiency. So that’s actually the bigger threat. If you’re going to try to make the government efficient, you would start with the FBI, because if you do politics all the time, you’re probably bloated.”

Another source suggested to the Times that some FBI employees who have grown tired of the Jan. 6 witch hunt are amused over the prospect that Trump will liberally issue pardons, nullifying their efforts.

While the promise of pardons has apparently amused some bureaucrats, it hasn’t slowed down
Democratic elements of the judiciary.

Baker, whose pretrial hearing regarding his
Jan. 6 misdemeanor charges is scheduled for Tuesday, told Blaze News that despite the understanding that Trump will ultimately pardon nonviolent Jan. 6 protesters, D.C. courts are continuing to waste time and taxpayer funds pursuing his and similar cases.

“They are going forward with the process no matter what, when they should be hitting the pause button,” said Baker.

While the president-elect currently lacks authority, Baker suggested that “he should at least issue a public statement and say, ‘I’m telling you, DOJ, I’m telling you, FBI, I’m telling you, judges of the D.C. District Court: You’re wasting your time. You’re wasting the people’s time. And you’re wasting the people’s money going through this process because I’m going to put a stop to this on the day of or day following my inauguration.’ He could at least send a signal.”

Baker suggested that such a statement may not get through to those blinded by hatred and committed to crushing Jan. 6 protesters, but it might resonate with those persons in the District of Columbia still equipped with common sense.

In the meantime, it appears that FBI employees are getting ready for a change of employment.

“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” one FBI source told the Times, referencing the bureau’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”

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Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri announced his support for Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Friday in the race to replace Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. At this point, this is the first public endorsement for Cornyn.

Cornyn is running to succeed McConnell alongside Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and John Thune of South Dakota.

“I’m backing John Cornyn for majority leader,” Hawley said in a statement. “In the last two years, nobody has done more to win back the majority than he has.”

Hawley also said Cornyn would ‘work closely and effectively with President Trump to deliver on the promise of our new majority.’

“He tirelessly raised millions of dollars for competitive Senate races including mine,” Hawley added.

Fundraising has been a focal point for the respective senators vying for the leadership position, given McConnell’s extensive fundraising power.

On Friday, Cornyn announced that he raised nearly $33 million this election cycle in support of Republican candidates, bringing his fundraising total over the course of his career to nearly $415 million.

Hawley also cited policy alignment as a reason for supporting Cornyn.

“He has voiced his support for the RECA compromise that would fairly compensate hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned by their government, including so many in Missouri,” Hawley said.

Hawley also said Cornyn would “work closely and effectively with President Trump to deliver on the promise of our new majority.”

Republicans regained their Senate majority this cycle, flipping seats in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Montana. While the Nevada and Arizona Senate races are still being counted, Republicans hold 53 seats and Democrats hold 48.

Amid the newfound majority, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah will be moderating a forum for the Senate leadership hopefuls on Tuesday, the night before the conference will cast votes for McConnell’s successor.

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Lee Gelernt, the deputy director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, called for leftists to take to the streets in order to help block President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda because the judicial system will only be able to do so much.

Open-border advocates are worried Trump will follow through on his campaign promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in recent history to address the Biden-Harris border crisis, which allowed millions of illegal immigrants to enter the country.

‘I do think that there is going to be a breaking point.’

“I think we’re going to do things different just because this is going to be a different playbook by them. I think they’re going be more prepared, and so we’re going to have to be much more strategic in how we go about it,” Gelernt told MSNBC.

“We’re going to have to coordinate among groups. … I think that we are going to try to be strategic, and we have to be clear-eyed about what we can win and what we can’t win. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I want to stress to people: We need you in the streets because the courts will not always do everything for us,” he continued.

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Gelernt if there’s more tolerance for Trump’s bold immigration policies because he won not just the Electoral College but also the popular vote, which would affect the number of people who would protest the measures.

“I do think that there is going to be a breaking point. I think that it is one thing during the election when everyone says that we want to do something about it. There hopefully are going to be really common-sense solutions that we can push back on, but I do think there are going to be lines,” Gelernt replied.

Gelernt admitted that “line” might have moved “a little bit,” and that’s one of the things that “keep us up at night.”

The Trump campaign has stated since election night that the new administration very much plans on following through with the deportation operation, starting on his first day in office. So far, the protests against Trump’s win have been muted compared to 2016, with a few cities, such as Seattle, Portland, and Chicago seeing some protests.

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On Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced the press for the first time since the election results were announced. During the briefing, multiple reporters challenged her regarding President Joe Biden’s earlier comments about President-elect Donald Trump.

Before Trump’s victory on Tuesday, Biden frequently warned Americans that Trump posed a threat to democracy. With the election outcome, the Biden administration has now vowed a peaceful transfer of power to the incoming Trump administration.

‘I do not appreciate having my words twisted.’

Jean-Pierre was pressed about Biden’s role in the Democratic Party’s Tuesday defeat. Reporters asked the press secretary whether the president regretted stepping down in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris and whether he felt responsible for the loss.

Jean-Pierre placed a majority of the blame on “global headwinds.”

“Despite all of the accomplishments that we were able to get done, there were global headwinds because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” she claimed. “And it had a political toll on many incumbents, if you look at what happened in 2024 globally. And that’s part of what you saw.”

Reporters questioned Jean-Pierre about Biden’s views on Trump before and after the election.

“The president repeatedly referred to Donald Trump as a threat to democracy over and over again. And this morning, though, he said we’re all going to be okay. So was that just political rhetoric?” NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez asked.

Jean-Pierre replied, “If you know the president, you know that him saying we’re all going to be okay, he’s an optimist, right? He believes when you get knocked down, you get back up. We are — we, we, we lost. But we’re not defeated, right?”

“The president believes — uh, as, as you asked me about the threat to democracy — uh, believes in — being an obligation to be honest to the American people,” she continued.

Jean-Pierre claimed that Trump had “talked about an enemy within,” “mistreating Americans who disagree with him,” and “terminating the Constitution.” She brought up comments by Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

“To be clear, he still believes Donald Trump is a threat to democracy?” Gutierrez asked.

“I think that the president was very clear, what he stated, and was very honest,” she replied. “Right now, we want to move forward, and we want to make sure there’s a peaceful transfer of power. That’s what the American people deserve.”

Another reporter asked Jean-Pierre whether Biden still stands by his comments about Trump being “an existential threat to democracy.”

“I don’t have anything else to share beyond what I said,” she responded.

Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich said to the press secretary, “This administration’s message to millions of Americans that they’re going to wake up [the] day after the election, if Trump won, and have their rights stripped away, that democracy would crumble. And the president said today we’re going to be okay. So how do you square that?”

“I can square that,” Jean-Pierre replied, stating that she had already answered the question multiple times. “The American people made the decision.”

Heinrich asked Jean-Pierre what the message is to “people who are fearful based on” Biden’s previous comments about Trump.

“Well, now you’re just twisting everything around, and that’s really unfair. No, it is, no, no, no, Jacqui, it’s unfair because I’ve been standing here trying to be very respectful to what happened the last two nights, two nights ago,” Jean-Pierre said.

She appeared frustrated by the line of questioning, adding, “I do not appreciate having my words twisted.”

Moments later, Jean-Pierre closed her binder and ended the presser.

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The women of “The View” have secured a coveted spot in history after being unable to control their TDS-fueled reaction to Trump’s win while live on air.

“In Finland, kids in nursery school are learning to discern between fake news and real news. They should be teaching that in this country. Teach children tolerance, teach them to think critically,” Joy Behar told the panel, following Trump’s landslide win.

Then, panelist Sara Haines took that comment to what Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” called “banana’s town.”

“Well, it would help if we could regulate social media, ‘cause one of the biggest offenders is D.C. and Congress have not been able to do one thing in regards to the rogue corporations with social media,” Haines said.

“If only social media would have been regulated, this wouldn’t have happened,” Rubin comments, shocked by her admission. “It’s you guys, it’s the mainstream media and the machine that has pushed all of the misinformation on us.”

However, Rubin doesn’t believe Haines had the craziest comment of the night — which was saved for Sunny Hostin.

“I’m profoundly disturbed,” Hostin began. “I think if you look at the New York Times this morning the headline was ‘America Makes a Perilous Choice.’ I think that in 2016, we didn’t know what we would get from a Trump administration, but we know now.”

“We know now that he will have almost unfettered power, and so I worry not about myself actually, I don’t worry about my station in life, I worry about the working class, I worry about my mother, a retired teacher, I worry about our elderly and their social security and their medical care, I worry about my children’s future — especially my daughter, who now has less rights than I have,” Hostin continued.

The fearmongerer went on to explain that she now has “less civil rights” than she did before and that she is “profoundly disturbed that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution did not prevent someone who participated in an insurrection from becoming president of the United States.”

Of her other concerns, Hostin listed “mass deportation and internment camps.”

“As a woman of color, I was so hopeful that a mixed-race woman married to a Jewish guy could be elected president of this country, and I think that it had nothing to do with policy, I think this was a referendum of cultural resentment in this country,” she explained.

“What we did not have is white women, who voted about 52% for Donald Trump. Uneducated white women is my understanding,” she continued, adding, “So why do you think that uneducated white women voted against their reproductive health freedoms? And why do you think Latino men voted for someone who is going to deport them?”

“I don’t think white women like being called uneducated white women,” Alyssa Farah, the only sane one, fired back. “When you put people in these boxes, I think that’s a takeaway from this race.”

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Days after he unwittingly nudged Joe Rogan farther toward an endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) found a group of constituents to scapegoat for the consequential defeat of one of his fellow Democrats.

Rather than admit the weakness of his comrades’ pitch to Americans or acknowledge that Republicans simply did a better job overall, Fetterman belittled Green Party voters for fulfilling their civic duty.

Fetterman jumped on X to complain after Republican David McCormick successfully ousted Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, giving the GOP an even greater majority in the U.S. Senate with at least 53 seats.

First, he took aim at the Associated Press for calling the race for McCormick, writing, “@AP_Politics shouldn’t make a call in this race until every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted.”

As it became clear that the Associated Press was not budging and the race might not fall within recount territory, Fetterman lashed out at those who would dare upset the Democrats’ political ambitions.

“Pennsylvania is going to count every last vote,” tweeted Fetterman. “That’s not controversial — that’s the law. Also, Green dips***s’ votes helping elect the GOP.”

‘Probably not the smartest choice.’

Accompanying the senator’s tweet was an image highlighting the number of votes Green Party candidate Leila Hazou received. At the time of writing, the Associated Press indicated that with 98% of the votes counted, Hazou, a Palestinian activist with an apparent problem with white men, netted 64,127 votes, amounting to 0.9% of the total. John Thomas, the Libertarian candidate whom Fetterman apparently overlooked, secured 1.3% of the vote.

Fetterman evidently figured that without Hazou in the race, those votes would necessarily have gone to Casey, who lost by roughly 0.5%.

Fetterman’s tweet served as yet another reminder of how little Democrats think of Americans who support parties other than their own.

Back in 2008, Barack Obama suggested that working-class voters in Pennsylvania and the Midwest who were ambivalent about supporting him in his first bid for the presidency were “bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.” Years later, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called her 2016 opponent’s supporters “irredeemable” “deplorables.” Weeks ago, President Joe Biden called Trump supporters “garbage.”

The Democratic senator’s “dips****” comment this week was not well received.

Elon Musk wrote, “Calling Green voters ‘dips****’ is not a great way to win them over.”

Scott Presler, the conservative activist who worked diligently in recent months to turn out the vote for Trump in the Keystone State, responded, “I think Green Party voters are going to remember you calling them names when you’re running for re-election. Probably not the smartest choice. We’ll be sure to remind them.”

“Cope Fetterlump,” wrote one X user.”

YouTuber David Freiheit, known under his online pseudonym “Viva Frei,” noted, “What a f***ing idiot. Instead of understanding why Dems are losing, they call the people whose support then want ‘dips****.’ Hey dumb***, maybe don’t adopt the rhetoric of the very same Tim Walz dips*** who just caused your demonic party to suffer the most devastating defeat since Mondale. Dips***.”

While keen to blame Green Party voters, Fetterman may have done more political damage overall with his pre-election interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where he struggled to provide satisfactory answers to the host’s questions about Democrats’ exploitation of the border crisis.

After his win, McCormick indicated that he was “honored and excited to represent EVERY Pennsylvanian.”

The Associated Press indicated when calling the race that even if Casey carried six out of 10 of the remaining votes, he still would not win. Nevertheless, Casey has yet to concede his defeat.

The defeated Democrat said in a statement Thursday evening, “We must allow that process to play out and ensure that every vote that is eligible to be counted will be counted. That is what Pennsylvania deserves.”

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has announced that a program to provide prepaid debit cards to thousands of illegal aliens will soon come to a close.

At the start of the year, the city began implementing the pilot program, which provided prepaid debit cards to a fraction of the estimated 60,000 migrants living in its shelters.

‘A total amount not to exceed $53 [million] … in accordance with the scope of services and fees.’

City officials initially defended the program, claiming it would cut costs in comparison to the boxed-meal service migrants had been receiving and permitted migrants to purchase food that they prefer or that better suited their dietary restrictions. It also allowed them to buy baby supplies as needed.

The amount migrants have received varies, but a family of four with two young children has typically received about $350 per week. Since the program began, about 2,600 migrants living at the Roosevelt Hotel have been given a total of about $3.2 million, a figure that officials believe is about half the cost of the boxed-meal service.

However, critics raised red flags about the program almost from the moment it came to light.

For one thing, it is unclear whether the purchases made on the cards have ever been monitored. While the cards reportedly work only at grocery stores, convenience stores, and bodegas, they may still have been spent on items unrelated to food and other necessities, though recipients were required to sign an affidavit promising to use them only for their intended purpose.

Moreover, such prepaid debit cards have not been offered to the homeless and other poor American citizens living in the city, prompting New York Council member Joseph Borelli to describe the program as “fundamentally unfair.” He and other Republicans on the council argued that the debit cards incentivized more illegal aliens to relocate to NYC.

Though it was billed as a cost-saving measure, the program also came as the result of a one-year, “emergency,” no-bid contract with New Jersey-based tech startup Mobility Capital Finance. The truncated process meant no competing offers and little time for thorough consideration.

City Comptroller Brad Lander has since revoked the city’s ability to enter into such emergency, no-bid contracts for services for migrants.

The overall cost of the program has also been obscured. While some reports indicate that MoCaFi receives only $400,000 for its services, the New York Post claimed back in February that the contract itself showed MoCaFi would receive “a total amount not to exceed $53 [million] … in accordance with the scope of services and fees” and that the $53 million sum did NOT include the money loaded onto the debit cards.

Despite these concerns, the city council announced in July that it would expand the program. Now, with the contract about to expire at the end of the year, Adams has reversed course and decided not to renew it.

“As we move towards more competitive contracting for asylum seeker programs, we have chosen not to renew the emergency contract for this pilot program once the one-year term concludes,” Adams said in a statement, WABC-TV reported Thursday.

Adams did not explain further why the program had been nixed. However, City Hall spokesperson William Fowler insisted that concerns about possible waste, fraud, and abuse never came to pass, Gothamist reported.

“We will continue to implement and learn from innovative pilot programs like the immediate response cards program as we care for hundreds of new arrivals every week,” Fowler said.

The announcement regarding the demise of the program comes just days after former President Donald Trump, who campaigned heavily on securing the border and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants who entered the country under the Biden-Harris administration, decisively beat Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

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Something strange is going on with American voters. Gone are the days of George W. Bush voters checking the box for every (R) down the list. Tuesday’s voters weren’t cooperating. President-elect Donald J. Trump may have won and Republicans may have taken the Senate (and likely the House), but it’s not all wine and roses for the Grand Old Party.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin defended her seat against businessman Eric Hovde by nearly 29,000 votes. In Michigan, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin beat Rep. Mike Rogers by more than 21,000 votes. While it’s not been called yet, Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is leading Afghanistan War veteran Sam Brown by nearly 12,700 votes, and Democratic Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego is leading news anchor Kari Lake by more than 52,000 votes.

It’s not just the Republican establishment’s problem to deal with, either.

The strange thing is that Trump won every one of these states. He won Wisconsin by as many votes as Hovde lost by — a 58,000-vote swing. He won Michigan by nearly 80,000 votes — a 100,000-vote swing. Nevada: 51,000 votes; Arizona: 136,000.

Even in Pennsylvania, where Republican Dave McCormick declared victory over Sen. Bob Casey (D) Thursday, Trump beat McCormick’s score by more than 140,000 votes.

State races aren’t cookie-cutter. Arizona, for example, is an outlier, with Lake a divisive figure running against a Hispanic man in a place where one in three voters is also Hispanic. And Baldwin is an incumbent (though so is Casey). Rogers is a onetime never-Trumper and unrepentant war hawk and Israel hard-liner in a state where anti-Israel Muslim voters withheld their support from Vice President Kamala Harris, though Slotkin is both Jewish and a former CIA officer and Pentagon attaché, complicating that narrative.

In Wisconsin, an America First Party candidate won enough votes to put Hovde just 241 behind Baldwin’s lead, and a Libertarian Party candidate’s votes would have put him 42,000 points in the lead. In Michigan, a libertarian’s votes would have blown Rogers past Slotkin — but a Green Party candidate did just about the same to the Democrat. And across the country, Green Party members, libertarians, and other shades of independents played spoilers or would-be spoilers too. It’s hard to tell how many of their supporters cast their votes as a protest (and wouldn’t otherwise vote for the Republican or Democrat) anyway.

Then there’s the only-Trump folks. The low-propensity voters who never pick up a pollster’s call and are unreachable outside of YouTube and TV sports ads. They don’t know who the Senate candidates are and don’t care. Nearly 19,000 Wisconsinites voted for president but not a Senate candidate. In Arizona, that number is nearly 26,500 (so far). In Nevada: 18,177. Pennsylvania: 68,391. And in Michigan, where the Israel war protest votes were higher: 86,784. The data and the results suggest a lot of those votes went to Donald J. Trump.

It’s not just the Republican establishment’s problem to deal with, either. While Trump outperformed every single Republican Senate winner outside Utah and Wyoming, among the winners he most significantly outperformed were Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by about 400,000 votes and Ohio Senator-elect Bernie Moreno by about 300,000 votes — a smaller number but a far bigger proportion of Ohio’s smaller electorate.

This is a reality that all Republicans are going to have to contend with even while celebrating their victories. Not unlike with former President Barack Obama, the coalition Trump has built is temperamental. Not only is it not the Republicans’ to take for granted, it isn’t even certainly the Republicans’ in the first place — and supporting Trump’s agenda is no simple cure. Republicans are going to have to figure out the key to this coalition and do their best to earn it. Remember: Trump will never be on an American ballot again.

Blaze News: Did ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ help Trump win? Elon Musk thinks so

The Federalist: After Trump’s victory, there can be no unity without a reckoning

Blaze News: Control of the House still hanging in the balance

Blaze News: Bernie Sanders calls Dems’ crushing defeat ‘no great surprise’ in scathing critique

Blaze News: Dems open can of worms by asking about millions of 2020 Biden voters who somehow disappeared in 2024

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Border Patrol Agent Zachary Apotheker faces an ongoing internal investigation that could potentially lead to his termination after he publicly expressed concerns about how open-border policies are fueling the illegal child trafficking crisis in the nation.

Apotheker started his Border Patrol career at the southern border and moved to the northern border’s Swanton Sector last year.

Since sharing his concerns during podcast appearances and interviews with media outlets, he says that Customs and Border Protection has retaliated against him despite whistleblower protection laws.

Apotheker has warned that there are “many ways to beat the [immigration] system” as it currently exists. His biggest concern is the disturbing increase in child trafficking.

‘I’m assuming they’re going to move to terminate me.’

He noted that the Border Patrol’s ability to look into the criminal background of foreign nationals crossing the border is limited.

“We don’t have their criminal history,” Apotheker told Blaze News.

“The adults may not show up with documents, but then the children may not show up with documents, or maybe false documents. So we’re just taking their word that this child is now this person’s child — that’s their biological parents,” he said. “We don’t even know if the adult that they’re with is a criminal.”

“We really can’t definitively say, and we can’t track them,” he continued. “Now, imagine if they’re unaccompanied [minors].”

“We’re just sending them somewhere, so maybe a relative’s house. How do we even know that it’s the relative’s house? And then who’s following up on it?” he questioned.

In early September, Apotheker appeared for an interview on the “Fresh&Fit Podcast,” where he shared how illegal immigrants exploit the current border policies to traffic humans and drugs into the United States.

Shortly after the podcast’s release, he received a cease-and-desist letter from Customs and Border Protection.

Around the same time, Apotheker was also featured in James O’Keefe’s documentary, “Line in the Sand,” where he spoke out about child trafficking.

In the film, Apotheker mentioned the horrific slaying of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a University of Georgia nursing student, who was murdered while jogging near campus. The man charged with Riley’s murder is a 26-year-old Venezuelan national who was in the U.S. illegally and is a suspected member of the transnational gang Tren de Aragua.

Apotheker told O’Keefe, “When a girl like Laken Riley is jogging, she’s top of her class at nursing, and we sign those f***ing files, man, that’s blood on our hands.”

“If it was your mother or your sister or your aunt, how would you feel?”

He told Blaze News that CBP questioned him about his appearance in the documentary film.

Apotheker responded to CBP officials, writing, “I participated in Line in the Sand Film on duty in uniform, as did many other Border Patrol Agents.”

In the film, several other Border Patrol officers spoke with O’Keefe while on duty.

He also added that he provided “no CBP information to any non-CBP employee” and gave “zero information that is not public.”

Apotheker noted that the “only compensation” he received for participating in the film “was a free, clean, and clear” conscience.

“I told the truth to the American Public and fulfilled my duty to the Constitution of the United States of America,” he wrote.

In his letter to CBP officials, Apotheker highlighted that the Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that over 300,000 children are missing. He further pointed out that CBP’s failure to collect biometric data on children makes correctly identifying them “effectively impossible.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security, “As the regulations currently exempt certain aliens from the collection of biometrics, including those under 14 and over 79, as well as individuals in certain visa classes, CBP does not use fingerprints to confirm the traveler’s identity in these cases.”

Apotheker told Blaze News that the agency stripped him of his government-issued firearm the same week he responded to the questioning.

‘It’s like these little mind game tricks. … They found a way to do what you can’t prove.’

On October 11, he received a memo from a CBP division chief informing him that he is “currently under investigation … for allegations related to serious breaches of integrity and/or security policies.”

The agency’s memo explained that it was “in the best interest of CBP to temporarily revoke your authority to carry a Government-issued firearm.” However, it claimed that the firearm revocation was “not a disciplinary action.”

Without a firearm, Apotheker was taken out of the field and instructed to report to work “in business casual attire.”

The memo was signed with an indecipherable handwritten signature belonging to a Swanton Sector division chief. No corresponding printed name to identify the individual was listed.

Image Source: Zachary Apotheker

Apotheker told Blaze News, “They pulled my gun, which takes me out of the field. I can’t do my job.”

“It’s kind of rare for them to take your gun for no other reason and say it wasn’t disciplinary but not take your law enforcement credentials,” he added.

Soon after receiving the memo, Apotheker was served another notice, this one compelling his sworn testimony on October 17 before a Department of Homeland Security special agent.

Apotheker was informed that he would be questioned about his “general misconduct/disruptive behavior.”

He attended the compelled administrative hearing but was advised by his legal representation not to answer any questions.

“I feel I’ve done nothing wrong,” Apotheker stated. He acknowledged that wearing his Border Patrol uniform during the podcast appearance breached the agency’s policy. However, he explained that he only did so after filing a whistleblower report through the DHS’ Office of Inspector General and speaking to a member of Congress, and “nothing was done.”

“I used discretion,” he said. “The country needs to be made aware of this.”

He explained that his legal counsel, obtained through the Citizenship Journalism Foundation, instructed him not to participate in the CBP’s “retaliatory investigation.”

“We just didn’t want to legitimize that meeting,” he told Blaze News. “I don’t feel like I should be being investigated. If anything, I feel like they should be asking me what I know and how to resolve it.”

The day after the hearing, Apotheker received a notice informing him that his law enforcement authority had been revoked, citing his “fail[ure] to respond to questions asked of you during an administrative interview conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Professional Responsibility.”

“Your refusal to participate in a compelled interview called into question your ability to perform the law enforcement functions of your positions as a Border Patrol Agent,” the memo read.

Apotheker was required to hand in the rest of his Border Patrol gear, including his badge, body armor, and radio.

“Consequently, you will be placed on administrative duties immediately,” the memo continued. “Your access to the building and computer systems will be modified to limit your accessibility only to those areas necessary to perform your assigned administrative duties. Since you will not be performing law enforcement duties, you are not to wear your uniform and will adhere to business casual dress code standards.”

Again, the memo mentioned, “Please note that this is not a disciplinary action, but is necessary, given the nature of the allegation(s) against you, in order to preserve the trust of the public we serve.”

The memo contained the same division chief’s signature and, again, no printed name.

Image Source: Zachary Apotheker

Apotheker told Blaze News that the agency changed his schedule and significantly cut his hours.

“Not only did they cut my overtime, which is a big amount of money, but from switching me from nights to mornings, what they’re basically trying to do is apply financial pressure to me because you get a 10% night differential for every hour after 6 p.m.,” he said.

Apotheker stated that his pay was slashed by at least $25,000-$35,000 with “all the tricks they did.” He feels the changes were “100% retaliatory,” despite the agency’s insistence otherwise.

“They would do everything they could to make it more difficult for me,” he said.

‘We’re gonna battle this out.’

Apotheker recounted that even before his equipment was confiscated and his law enforcement powers were stripped, his superiors seemed to go out of their way to make his time at work more challenging, including stationing him in the most remote areas of the sector. After driving for hours to reach his assignment, he would soon be summoned back for last-minute meetings, he said.

“They’d send me out to the furthest part of our area. I drive out there for two hours, they call me back. Now, it happened consistently,” he said. “Every day, I knew that I was gonna get called over the radio to come in for another meeting where they could have just had the meeting then and there.”

“It’s like these little mind game tricks,” Apotheker added. “They found a way to do what you can’t prove.”

He explained that before he left the southern border and relocated to the Swanton Sector, he “was known as someone that was not happy with what was going on in Arizona.”

“And when I came up here, I felt like that followed me — that I was a person with a reputation that would speak out against what’s going on instead of just doing it and shutting up,” Apotheker added.

He stated he got the impression that his leadership “wanted to make it known to me that that wasn’t going to be tolerated up here.”

Apotheker told Blaze News that Border Patrol Agents have “worked harder on the northern border than we have down south because, per capita, we have less agents to do so much work.”

“We have a lot of drive-throughs up here, which means people will physically take a vehicle and drive from Canada into America, which should be a massive crime. You’re not just crossing; now you’re taking a vehicle across. You’re driving past an international boundary,” he explained. “If it’s a family, sometimes they’ve taken us on chases.”

The Swanton Sector is the most heavily trafficked northern border section, covering 24,000 square miles.

In October, Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia announced, “Border Patrol Agents in Swanton Sector have apprehended more than 19,222 subjects from 97 different countries since October 1, 2023, which is more than its last 17 fiscal years combined.”

Apotheker is concerned that the CBP’s internal investigation will ultimately result in his firing.

When asked what is next for him, Apotheker told Blaze News, “We’re gonna battle this out.”

“I’m assuming they’re going to move to terminate me,” he continued, but he noted that “there’s a lot of different things that could happen.”

“I don’t want it to be about me,” Apotheker added. “I want it to be about what’s going on the last three and a half years, which everybody knows, and I want to expose the people that are trying to remove me for telling the truth. And that’s my goal is that I’m not going to give in.”

Neither CBP nor DHS-OIG responded to Blaze News’ requests for comment.

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