OAN Staff Abril Elfi
5:59 PM – Monday, March 3, 2025
The top FBI agent in New York, James Dennehy, has been forced to retire.
According to an email obtained by CNN and the New York Post, Dennehy announced his forced resignation in a letter to staffers at the FBI’s New York Field Office.
“Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did. I was not given a reason for this decision,” he wrote.
He then went on to apologize for the abruptness of his resignation in the letter, in which he called his colleagues “an office of professionals who will always do the right thing for the right reasons.”
In the letter, he also included one of his signature “top 10” lists, this one rattling off the things he’ll miss about working for the FBI, including “the independence.”
“We will not bend. We will not falter. We will not sacrifice what is right for anything or anyone,” he said.
Dennehy had a high-profile battle with acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove last month, penning a defiant email to staffers urging them to “dig in” after officials tasked with investigating the January 6th demonstration at the U.S. Capitol were forced out of their roles.
“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the FBI and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy,” the email stated.
“I’ve been told many times in my life, ‘When you find yourself in a hole, sometimes it’s best to quit digging.’ Screw that. I will never stop defending this joint. I’ll just do it willingly and proudly from outside the wire,” his resignation letter to staff concluded.
Dennehy joined the FBI as a special agent in 2002, and he was assigned to counterintelligence cases in the New York field office. Throughout his distinguished career, he was promoted multiple times, most recently in 2018 when he was appointed chief of staff to the executive assistant director of the National Security Branch at FBI headquarters.
He was then appointed as Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office in 2022.
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