The FBI confirmed to The Epoch Instances that it shut down its variety, fairness, and inclusion workplace final month.
Because the FBI has just lately confirmed that it shut down its variety, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) workplace, President-elect Donald Trump has demanded that the bureau protect its data associated to this resolution.
A spokesperson for the FBI confirmed to The Epoch Instances on Friday that its variety workplace was shut down final month.
“In current weeks, the FBI took steps to shut the Workplace of Range and Inclusion (ODI), efficient by December 2024,” the spokesperson stated.
The bureau, nevertheless, didn’t present some other particulars about why it determined to shutter the variety workplace, together with what motivated it to take action.
The assertion and reviews in regards to the FBI closing that workplace prompted Trump, who is because of take workplace in three days, to put in writing, “We demand that the FBI protect and retain all data, paperwork, and knowledge on the now closing DEI Workplace,” which “by no means ought to have been opened.”
Whereas on the marketing campaign path, Trump and then-vice presidential nominee JD Vance stated they’d work to take away DEI workplaces and associated insurance policies from the federal authorities. In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan in October 2024, Vance stated that some white kids have gotten transgender as a way to fulfill DEI necessities to get into some universities.
“The a method that these folks can take part within the DEI paperwork on this nation is to be trans, and is there a dynamic that’s occurring the place, in case you grow to be trans, that’s the method to reject your white privilege?” Vance requested at one level.
In current days, the FBI has come underneath renewed scrutiny from Republicans in Congress, who accused the FBI of prioritizing DEI-related insurance policies within the wake of the New Orleans terrorist assault that left greater than a dozen folks lifeless on New 12 months’s Day. Some, corresponding to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), have requested whether or not the company prioritized DEI over nationwide safety.
“Till the President-Elect’s nominee to steer the FBI is confirmed, the American folks need to know the total extent to which your radical DEI agenda has compromised our nationwide safety,” she stated.
Blackburn’s letter famous that a number of former FBI brokers have advised members of Congress that “legislation enforcement and intelligence capabilities of the FBI are degrading as a result of the FBI is now not hiring ‘the most effective and the brightest’ candidates,” suggesting it’s proof that DEI insurance policies are guilty.
However a handful of board members on a number of corporations, together with Apple and Costco, have publicly known as on their shareholders to maintain their respective corporations’ DEI insurance policies intact.
The closure of the FBI’s variety was first reported on Thursday by Fox Information.
The Epoch Instances contacted the FBI for extra touch upon Trump’s assertion however didn’t obtain a response by publication time.