On Attorney General Pam Bondi’s first day in office, she announced a powerful new task force designed to investigate the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped and murdered more than 40 Americans during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, and to probe antisemitic attacks in the United States.
A year later, that Oct. 7 task force has lost many of its resources, with numerous prosecutors and agents fired or redirected to competing administration priorities, according to current and former officials familiar with the task force’s activities. The task force has brought terrorism charges in one case so far.
These struggles come as the United States faces a potential uptick in antisemitic threats tied to terrorist organizations as a result of the war in Iran. The task force’s fate highlights how national security experts in the Justice Department and FBI have been thinned out under President Donald Trump, often being reassigned or dismissed as the administration pursues its political objectives.
Those interviewed, including many who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said that when Bondi announced the task force last year, it was greeted with much fanfare and widespread support within the Justice Department. But as the months dragged on, they said, it received few resources and little time to fulfill its mission.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the task force’s structure “has evolved but its mission remains the same—prosecute those who fund or otherwise materially support terrorism.” The spokesperson added that “counterterrorism prosecutors remain assigned to [the task force] full-time where they provide critical support and guidance to ongoing investigations.”
FBI field offices across the country — including in San Francisco, Dallas and New York — are assigned to work on the murder and abduction investigations, with an analyst at FBI headquarters assigned to the cases full time.
Mary McCord, former acting head of the department’s National Security Division, said the Justice Department does not need task forces to investigate terrorism. But the diminishment of this group, she said, shows the consequences of the widespread departure of the department’s national security experts.
“When a person is assigned to this task force, they have the requisite experience to be involved in a counterterrorism investigation,” McCord said. “When that person is fired, it shows that the higher goal is retribution and retaliation, even at the expense of counterterrorism investigations.”
Soon after the Oct. 7 attacks — when Hamas operatives surged across the Gaza border, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostage — the Biden Justice Department began strategizing on how the United States could bring criminal charges against the Hamas terrorists who carried them out. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland filed charges in September 2024 against six senior Hamas leaders.
By the time Trump took office more than a year later, many Justice Department officials, including career staffers, felt the investigations were proceeding too slowly, and they wanted to move faster and more aggressively, current and former officials said.
So the Oct. 7 joint terrorism task force was born, announced with a flourish by Bondi. “The barbaric Hamas terrorists will not win—and there will be consequences,” she said.
The effort was distinct from a separate administration team also assigned to target antisemitism, which has focused on investigating universities for their diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
In contrast with that group, the Justice Department task force was widely viewed as apolitical. Longtime career employees raised their hands to join, eager to work with U.S. attorney’s offices across the country to surge resources to this batch of terrorism and hate-crime investigations.
About three dozen people were named to serve on the task force when it launched — some part time, others full time. The goal, two people familiar with the task force said, was to grow it to 60 people.
It seemed to have support across the Justice Department’s upper ranks. Former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino visited the task force’s headquarters in Virginia, according to people familiar with the matter. Israeli law enforcement officials met with its members to strategize on how the two countries could work together to bring charges.
Christine Bogle, a veteran prosecutor who was part of the team that indicted Hamas members during the Biden administration, was tapped to help lead the task force’s pursuit of terrorists who had murdered and kidnapped American citizens on Oct. 7.
Top prosecutors from the Eastern District of Virginia — which handles many of the country’s biggest national security cases — were also enlisted. And series of highly respected FBI agents joined to add more firepower, with a goal of adding additional agents later.
Kyle Boynton, a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and a former FBI agent, was named to head the section of the task force focused on prosecuting antisemitic hate crimes. Boynton worked with U.S. attorneys to help prosecute at least two high-profile hate crimes.
The task force saw some initial successes. It was credited last year with arresting and indicting a Gaza man living in Louisiana who was allegedly involved in the Oct. 7 attack. That case is awaiting trial.
But the group quickly started to unravel.
Bogle was one of a group of task force members who traveled to Israel in June to gather more evidence against Hamas leaders. But weeks after that trip, Bogle was fired from the Justice Department because of her involvement in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the personnel decision.
On the day of her termination in July, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bogle was working all day and had no idea she had been terminated, until hours later when she realized she had lost access to her electronic devices.
Another prominent task force member, Maya Song — the former second-ranking prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia — was pushed out of the department in September. She was one of many experienced prosecutors from her office ousted over their reluctance to bring charges against two of Trump’s prominent political foes, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James B. Comey.
As for Boynton, he was dispatched to work on other jobs within the Civil Rights Division, people familiar with the matter said. He left the department earlier this year.
Meanwhile, FBI agents across the country, including those assigned to the task force, have been stretched increasingly thin carrying out competing priorities of the administration. Those include around-the-clock immigration enforcement and investigations of what Trump officials describe as left-wing terrorism.
As FBI agents on the task force were deployed to other jobs, people familiar with its activities said, it soon became clear that the Justice Department had no plans to replace them.
The task force’s struggles reflect the broader problems engulfing a department increasingly hollowed out by firings, buyouts, resignations and reassignments. Throughout the department, pivotal roles are vacant, and key teams have been decimated.
Trump officials have sought to hire for some of the open slots, but in many instances they have struggled to find qualified applicants, as many potential recruits recoil from working at the now-turbulent agency.
In some instances, that has left the Justice Department relying on political appointees to bring cases, rather than the career prosecutors who would normally do so.
The current and former officials interviewed for this article said national security prosecutors and agents require extensive training and specialized skills, making the positions especially difficult to backfill or replace with political appointees.
National security experts said the fighting in Iran could pose additional challenges. FBI Director Kash Patel, for example, fired roughly a dozen agents and staff members last month who once had ties to an investigation of Trump — including agents who specialized in addressing threats from Iran and its proxies.
The Justice Department has defended its national security expertise, saying it is more than capable of protecting the nation from violent attacks.
“In coordination with partners throughout the Trump administration, the dedicated prosecutors and other attorneys of the [national security] division will continue to aggressively pursue those who seek to harm our nation, disrupt hostile foreign actors, and ensure that the full weight of the law is brought to bear against anyone who threatens the safety and security of the United States,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department previously told The Washington Post.
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