Inside the hulking concrete edifice of the J Edgar Hoover building in downtown Washington, the nation's most experienced federal agents are paralyzed by fear. Instead of zoning in on high profile investigations involving cybersecurity or counterintelligence, some agents find themselves mundanely clicking through internal trainings, the type workers with 9-to-5 desk jobs take pains to avoid. In the wild, this behavior is referred to as 'playing possum' – and in the FBI, too, current and former agents say it is a means of survival during the turbulent reign of the agency's director, Kash Patel. 'I've had people say, "I just go in and sit at my desk and don't do anything... basically responding to emails, taking the virtual academy classes, and staying out of trouble," because [they] don't want to get fired,' one former agent told the Daily Mail. It is a dynamic echoed by other agents, who spoke anonymously to the Daily Mail due to concerns of retaliation. Worry about termination for bein...
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