ORLANDO, Fla. — A former FBI employee who lives in Central Florida says she is sounding the alarm about the agency’s cuts.
The FBI launched a wide round of staff cuts to bureaus across the country as the Trump Administration aims to shrink the size of the federal government.
Investigative Reporter Ashlyn Webb sat down with Heather Vescio, who says the cuts will come at a cost.
Vescio left the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2018 after a decade with the agency.
But now, she’s speaking on behalf of her friends who are still working for the FBI.
“They’re scared. They’re scared for their jobs, but they’re scared for the public because they know, just like I know, what’s out there and what the potentials are, and people are going to get hurt,” Vescio said.
President Donald Trump has backed Elon Musk and DOGEs actions, calling the cuts necessary.
“The overall goal here with the team is to help address the enormous deficit we simply cannot sustain as a country, 2 trillion deficits,” Musk said.
Vescio published a blog about her concerns
“That there won’t be any people to work the cases. There will be nobody out there to stand between your child and a predator or the parade and a mass shooting. Who’s going to do it?,” Vescio said.
“So there’s agents to actually investigate each of these cases. And so there might be a length of time before that case is ever looked into,” Webb reiterated.
“Oh yes, that’s exactly what it is,” Vescio said.
“And the backlog of cases that we see now, there could be more?,” Webb asked.
“Absolutely,” Vescio replied.
The FBI Agents Association represents more than 14,000 active and former FBI agents.
In a statement, the association called the cuts “outrageous.”
“Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats,” the association stated.
Vescio says many of the jobs are tough enough to work as is.
She worked as a senior forensic examiner in the child exploitation division and later in terrorism.
“Could you talk about the emotional toll it takes?” Webb asked.
“It’s facing the reality of the evil that exists among us all every day that I really didn’t know existed before I worked those cases. And it’s all around us,” Vescio replied.
Musk has requested all federal workers send a list of their accomplishments for the week or face termination.
FBI Director Kash Patel told FBI employees to pause any responses to the email.
Vescio says there are clearance concerns about FBI employees responding to that email. She is also concerned about the people making the decision about where to cut.
“When you have people so far removed making decisions to fire those actually doing the work, it’s a problem,” Vescio said.
DOGE says it plans to use AI to assess the responses to emails from federal workers.
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