According to two sources familiar with the Trump administration, the FBI has fired a special agent who previously assisted in managing cases involving public corruption, including one that became part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump. This is another apparent casualty of the Trump administration’s drive for retribution.
Previously, Aaron Tapp served as the deputy assistant director of the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI headquarters before taking over as special agent in charge of the San Antonio office. He oversaw investigations into Trump’s attempts to rig the 2020 presidential election there for a while.
The fake electors scam, in which Trump supporters attempted to have Trump electors counted as electoral college votes from states that Joe Biden won, was the subject of one of these investigations, dubbed Arctic Frost.
Republicans have accused Smith and FBI authorities of having political motivations when they issued grand jury subpoenas to get the phone records of nine GOP legislators. They have disclosed FBI documents detailing the Arctic Frost probe in recent weeks.
REPORT: Kash Patel Ousts Special Agent in Charge Who Appeared in Arctic Frost Document Dump https://t.co/RcUCUGeieI
— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) October 30, 2025
The documents, which were acquired in 2023, chronicled the four days leading up to the Capitol disturbance on January 6, 2021. The calls’ contents were not obtained by the FBI. Smith has stated that the subpoenas were standard investigation instruments and denied any political motivations.
It’s been more than 20 years since Tapp has been with the FBI, as per his bio on the FBI’s website. CNN has currently reached out to the FBI’s headquarters and the San Antonio field office for a reply. Three former senior Investigating officials who were fired in August are now suing FBI Director Kash Patel and the Trump administration. CNN said last month that they were fired as part of a purge ordered by the White House, and fueled by abuse from MAGA supporters on social media.
Patel has allegedly politicized the FBI to preserve his own job, according to Spencer Evans, who oversaw the Las Vegas field office. Steven Jensen, whom Patel appointed as assistant director in charge of the Washington field office, has agreed to Evans. Even Brian Driscoll, who served as acting FBI director for a month at the beginning of the second Trump administration, also criticized Patel.
“Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people,” the lawsuit states.
Top investigating personnel gave first-hand recollections of the turbulent first few weeks of Trump’s second term in the 68-page lawsuit. According to the complaint, attempts of trying to terminate or otherwise punish all the agents or staff for merely working on criminal investigations of Trump failed due to Driscoll and other senior officials.
Despite Trump’s frequent vows to inflict political retribution at his campaign rallies, Patel and other officials had rejected any preparations for such a course of action during Senate confirmation hearings.
