'Like Joe McCarthy': Expert sounds alarm as FBI hands DOJ info on thousands of agents

FBI agents had gone to court to stop their information from being leaked to the public and endangering the lives and families of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases.

Thousands of FBI agents across the country worked as investigators on cases, and a source told NBC News that the FBI turned over a list of identifying information of those agents to the Justice Department. While it doesn't include their names, the list includes their employee number, position, and the post they held when working on the Jan. 6 cases, as well as other data.

Former FBI lawyer Andrew Weissmann told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday that while the list didn't include names, "once you have the employee numbers, it's just not hard" to identify the agents.

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"I'm not old enough for it, although today I'm feeling old enough for it — it feels like Joe McCarthy," said Weissmann, referencing the late Wisconsin senator who sifted through government employees trying to find communists or communist sympathizers. Those, in his mind, also included people who knew communists, supported labor unions, were hiding "homosexual activity," and a slew of other things he would allege publicly to destroy the lives of the employees.

"This is naming names and for no good reason," continued Weissmann. "And that was First Amendment activity. I mean, protected activity. This is activity that we want agents to be doing. And the idea that they're on a list for retribution when you have a convicted felon in the White House, and you have now the complicity of the leadership of the Department of Justice, it is such a state in terms of where we are as a country."

Weissmann said the country now must face whether the Trump administration will follow court rulings.

"The courts don't have an army," said Weissmann. "They can make an order and Trump can say, 'Great. Good luck enforcing it!' And that is the end of the last check and balance."

Former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele said the goal was to fire the agents and replace them with loyalists. Doing so would upend the entire legal system.

"A convicted felon is orchestrating the retribution against those who came after his criminal activity," said Steele. "I'm trying to figure out what the crime was here. That's like saying a crime happens. Police and others investigate it, and then everybody goes after the investigators to investigate the crime and calls them the criminals and wants to go after them. So, what are we saying to the rest of the country now? This is the new order of things. Crime is good for me, but not for thee?"

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