FBI investigations have been slowed or stalled by the second-longest U.S. government shutdown in history, leaving the bureau without funds to pay informants or make undercover drug or gun buys, gaps that an FBI spokesperson said are putting national security at risk.
The FBI does not provide detailed public information about how its $10.7 billion budget is spent and it is not clear how much of the total has been held up due to the shutdown, according to five current and three former FBI employees.
The shutdown, now in its 30th day, has frozen FBI funds used for operational travel, such as when an informant needs to travel to meet a drug supplier or boss or another investigative subject, the sources said. FBI employees are also without funds to travel outside their local areas.
“In a shutdown, the FBI’s eyes and ears go dark,” said retired FBI agent Tom Simon, who worked counterterrorism and criminal cases and at one point worked on a squad recruiting and paying informants. “Without funds to pay informants, the Bureau loses its most critical source of real-time intelligence,” said Simon, who retired in 2021 after 26 years at the FBI and now works as a private investigator in Florida.
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