Fired FBI officials sue Trump administration for ‘illegal retribution’

US lawsuit names as defendants FBI’s Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as the FBI, the Justice Department and the Executive Office of the President.

Former FBI Acting Director Brian Driscoll and two other former senior officials who were fired without cause last month have sued the administration of US President Donald Trump, alleging they were dismissed in a “campaign of retribution” that targeted officials viewed as insufficiently loyal.

The complaint asserts that FBI Director Kash Patel indicated directly to one of the ousted agents, Brian Driscoll, that he knew the firings were “likely illegal” but was powerless to stop them because the White House and the Justice Department were determined to remove all agents who had helped in investigations surrounding Trump.

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“The FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,” Patel told Driscoll, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans, three of five agents known to have been fired last month in a purge that current and former officials say has unnerved the workforce.

It represents a legal challenge from the top rungs of the FBI’s leadership ladder to a flood of departures under Trump’s Republican administration that has wiped out decades of experience. Fired agents have levelled unflattering allegations against a law enforcement agency whose personnel moves are shaped by the White House and guided more by politics than by public safety.

“Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people,” the suit says. “His decision to do so degraded the country’s national security by firing three of the FBI’s most experienced operational leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime.”

Spokespeople for the FBI declined to comment on the lawsuit, as they also did after the agents were ousted.

Concerns of reputational damage

The suit was filed in federal court in Washington, where judges and grand juries have pushed back against Trump administration initiatives and charging decisions. It names as defendants Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, as well as the FBI, the Justice Department and the Executive Office of the President.

Besides reinstatement, the suit seeks, among other remedies, the awarding of back pay, an order declaring the firings illegal and even a forum for them to clear their names. It notes that Patel, in a Fox News Channel interview two weeks after the terminations, said “every single person” found to have weaponised the FBI had been removed from leadership positions, even though the suit says there’s no indication any of the three had done so.

“This false and defamatory public smear impugned the professional reputation of each of the Plaintiffs, suggesting they were something other than faithful and apolitical law enforcement officials, and has caused not only the loss of the Plaintiffs’ present government employment but further harmed their future employment prospects,” the suit states.

Unnerving requests from leadership

The three fired officials, according to the lawsuit, had participated in and supervised some of the FBI’s most complex work, including international terrorism investigations.

“They were pinnacles of what the rank-and-file aspired to, and now the FBI has been deprived not only of that example but has been deprived of very important operational competence,” said Chris Mattei, one of the agents’ lawyers. “Their firing from the FBI, taken together, has put every American at greater risk than when Brian Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans were in positions of leadership.”

Another one of their attorneys, Abbe Lowell, stated that the lawsuit reveals FBI leadership is “carrying out political orders to punish law enforcement agents for doing their jobs”.