◥◤Kriston Capps
‪@kristoncapps.bsky.social‬

Follow
Just last month the FBI forced out its top agent in Salt Lake City, a Pakistani American woman whom a former FBI agent describes as a “legendary case agent who was involved in some of the most significant national security cases of the last two decades.”

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna222988

September 10, 2025 at 8:19 PM

ANALYSIS
High-ranking FBI job losses disproportionately hurt women, people of color

Leaders are undertaking an unprecedented campaign to force senior officials off the job.


FBI Director Kash Patel in Washington, D.C., on May 8.Nathan Howard / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

Aug. 5, 2025, 11:18 AM EDT
By Ken Dilania

An unprecedented campaign by FBI leaders to force senior bureau officials out of their jobs has disproportionately hit women and people of color, according to public records and an unofficial tally by current and former FBI officials. … In the most recent example, FBI leaders last week forced the resignation of a decorated female Pakistani American counterterrorism agent who was appointed in February to run the Salt Lake City field office, one current and two former FBI officials tell MSNBC.

{snip}

The special agent in charge in Salt Lake City, Mehtab Syed, is being forced out just six months after being appointed in February, for reasons that are not clear, the sources said. Associate Deputy Director J. William Rivers, who works for Bongino and Patel, told Syed she wasn’t a good fit for the office, which covers Utah, Idaho and Montana, the sources said. He offered her a lower-level job in the FBI’s Huntsville, Alabama, facility, but she has decided to retire, the sources said. She did not respond to a request for comment.

“She’s absolutely the best — truly a humble servant leader who treats co-workers like family,” said former FBI agent Christopher O’Leary, an MSNBC national security contributor who worked with Syed. “And she’s a legendary case agent who was involved in some of the most significant national security cases of the last two decades.”

Syed has served in a variety of consequential FBI jobs, including head of cyberterrorism and counterterrorism in the Los Angeles field office, a section chief in the counterintelligence section at FBI headquarters, and assistant legal attaché in Pakistan during the height of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda in that region. She also worked in counterterrorism in the New York field office and served in Amman, Jordan, during the U.S. fight against the Islamic State terrorist group, or ISIS.

Born in Pakistan, Syed moved to the United States at age 17, and joined the FBI after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. … “You feel shame first because you’re Muslim, you see someone doing something so bad, and it kind of reflects who you are,” she told KSL.com, a local television station in Utah, in a May interview. “But then I got angry, and I was like, ‘Uh-uh, that’s not happening.’”

Ken Dilanian
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MSNBC.

New head of Salt Lake FBI office made dramatic career shift to be part of the 'solution'

By Pat Reavy, KSL.com | Posted - May 27, 2025 at 8:05 a.m.


Mehtab Syed, the new head of the FBI's Salt Lake field office, talks about how an immigrant from Pakistan went from a career as a financial analyst for a restaurant chain to working counter- and cyber-terrorism with the FBI. (FBI Salt Lake City )

Leer en español
Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS
• Mehtab Syed, born in Pakistan, now leads the FBI's Salt Lake City field office.
• Her FBI career began post-9/11, driven by a desire for change.
• Syed emphasizes the need for more resources across Utah, Idaho and Montana.

SALT LAKE CITY — Mehtab Syed has an impressive resume that includes working for the FBI in some of the nation's biggest cities and the department's most important divisions.

That's not bad for a woman who was born in Pakistan, moved to the United States when she was 17 and was working as a financial analyst for a restaurant chain.

"Never in a million years did I ever plan to be an FBI agent," she told KSL.com this week.

In February, Syed was named as the new head of the FBI's Salt Lake City field office, which also includes Idaho and Montana.

{snip}