Thomas O’Connor:

People were very honest with us. Hundreds of agents wrote in to us, and they wrote their stories about their spouses being ill, and the difficulty that they — they're now having to go to family to ask for help.

Personally, I find that disgusting, that an FBI agent or an FBI employee, who works for the federal government, works every day — and the key is, these agents are working. They are on the street. They are not home. They are working. They are just not getting paid.

And to have those people suffer through this financial hardship, for over a month now, FBI agencies and support employees, have gotten no money for the work that they have done, which means that all the things that we have to pay at the end of the month, we have to pull that out of our savings.

And I don't care how financially secure are you. You can't go on forever with that. I most worry about our young agents with families and our support employees, who may be at a lower pay scale. These are the people who are going to suffer and are suffering the soonest.