FBI agents who worked on Trump election probe sue, saying they were unjustly fired
An FBI flag flutters outside the the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington
(CNN) — FBI agents who say they were summarily fired for investigating President Donald Trump following his first term have filed a class-action lawsuit arguing they were improperly dismissed from the agency.
The lawsuit demands the three agents be reinstated and could, if successful, open the door for at least 50 other agents who were part of the various Trump investigations and fired under similar circumstances to also rejoin the agency.
The agents say that both Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel “were personally embroiled, as fact witnesses or attorneys representing (Trump), in investigations brought by the FBI, through the FBI’s career employees.”
“And now, by virtue of presidential appointment to the pinnacle of federal law enforcement, Defendants are abusing their positions to claim victories that eluded them on the merits,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants’ mission – in their own words – is retribution.”
The FBI declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The three agents say they were fired without clear explanation or the ability to respond and had each worked on the 2020 election case, with decades of experience at the FBI between them.
The Justice Department faces several other lawsuits by FBI agents who say they were unconstitutionally dismissed from the agency as part of a political purging of those who worked on past investigations into Trump or who are believed to not align with the president’s agenda.
Patel and Bondi, the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, DC, says, “began their terms of office by compiling lists of FBI employees whom they perceived to be ‘enemies’ — due to assigned investigative work, private comments, personal friendships, immutable characteristic, or other absurd measure — and publicly initiating mass firings on a rolling basis, without due process.”
The agents also said they were required by FBI policy “to accept all lawful assignments based on the needs of the FBI” and were “not permitted to refuse lawful assignments based on personal or political preferences.”
Investigations into Trump’s retention of classified material after leaving office and his effort to change the results of the 2020 election culminated in two criminal cases against the former president led by special counsel Jack Smith.
The classified materials case was dismissed by a federal judge appointed by Trump who found that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was invalid because, in part, he was not confirmed by the Senate. Smith withdrew the election-related case after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
The-CNN-Wire
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