Three ex-FBI agents file a lawsuit against Patel, claiming their dismissal was tied to Trump administration retaliation. Explore the case ...
Three ex-FBI agents file a lawsuit against Patel, claiming their dismissal was tied to Trump administration retaliation. Explore the case details
A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday says that three high-level FBI officials were fired last month as part of a "campaign of retribution" by a director who knew better but gave in to political pressure from the Trump administration. The lawsuit says that the White House was directly involved in the FBI's personnel moves.
Sources say that Director Kash Patel told Brian Driscoll, one of the fired agents, that he knew it was "likely illegal" to fire agents based on the cases they worked on but couldn't do anything about it because the White House and the Justice Department were set on firing all agents who are investigating President Donald Trump. It says that Patel told Driscoll last month that "the FBI tried to put the president in jail, and he hasn't forgotten about it."
The case was brought on behalf of Driscoll, Steve Jensen, and Spencer Evans. These three were among the five agents who were fired last month in a purge that current and former officials say has made the workforce nervous. Legal challenges from people who used to be at the top of the bureau's leadership ladder and who together have decades of experience as police officers paint a picture of an agency where hiring decisions are based more on politics than on public safety.
The suit says, "Patel not only did something wrong, but he also chose to politicize the FBI over protecting the American people." It also says, "His decision to do so hurt the national security of the country by firing three of the FBI's most experienced operational leaders, all of whom were experts in stopping terrorism and lowering violent crime."
The FBI wouldn't say anything about the case, just like they wouldn't say anything about the agents being fired.
Fears of harming their image
The lawsuit was brought in federal court in Washington, D.C., where judges and grand juries have fought back against actions and decisions made by the Trump administration. It makes Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Executive Office of the President defendants.
In addition to getting them back on the job, the lawsuit asks for back pay, an order saying that the firings were illegal, and even a place where they can clear their names. It says that Patel said on Fox News Channel two weeks after the firings that "every single person" who was found to have used the FBI as a tool had been fired, even though the lawsuit says there's no proof that any of the three had done that.
The lawsuit says, "This false and defamatory public smear hurt each of the Plaintiffs' professional reputation by making it seem like they were anything other than honest and unbiased police officers. It has cost the Plaintiffs their current government jobs and hurt their chances of getting jobs in the future."
Requests from bosses that are scary
The lawsuit says that the three fired officials had worked on and been in charge of some of the FBI's most difficult cases, such as probes into foreign terrorism.
One of the agents' lawyers, Chris Mattei, said, "They were the models that the rest of us aimed to be like. Now the FBI not only lacks that example but also very important operational competence." "The fact that they were fired from the FBI makes every American safer than they were when Brian Driscoll, Steve Jensen, and Spencer Evans were in charge."
Abbe Lowell, one of their lawyers, said the case shows that the FBI is "carrying out political orders to punish law enforcement agents for doing their jobs."
Driscoll, who used to be in charge of the FBI's specialized hostage rescue team and was temporary director when Christopher Wray quit in January and Patel was approved in February, is one of the most well-known claimants.
It got very public when he got into a fight with Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official, in the early days of the Trump administration. Bove wanted a list of agents who worked on the investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which was caused by a group of Trump fans. But Driscoll didn't follow the order, so Bove accused him of "insubordination."
After the fight, Driscoll got another high-profile job as the head of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), which goes to emergencies. The complaint says that new problems started last month when a false post on social media said that an FBI pilot who was in charge of flying the bureau's private jet had signed the search warrant for the investigation into Trump's storage of classified documents at his Palm Beach, Florida, home, Mar-a-Lago.
According to the lawsuit, Driscoll was told that Chris Meyer, the pilot, could no longer take Patel on the FBI plane. Driscoll agreed to the request, but he wouldn't take away Meyer's pilot tasks completely, and he didn't want to talk about how the Trump administration wanted to fire him.
The claim talks about a meeting that happened in early August. Driscoll told Patel that it was against the law to fire someone because of their caseload. The suit says Patel said he knew what he was doing was "probably illegal" and could get him sued, but he had to fire the people his bosses wanted him to "because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President."
Meyer is not one of the people who are suing on Wednesday, even though he was one of the five fired last month.
One of the claimants, Jensen, was chosen by Patel to lead the bureau's Washington field office, even though Trump supporters didn't like the way he led investigations into the Capitol riots in the past. According to the lawsuit, Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Jensen that they were spending "a lot of political capital" to keep him in the job, even though FBI chiefs publicly stood up for him.
According to the lawsuit, Bongino told him in May that he would have to fire an agent who worked in his office and had worked on cases involving Trump as well as investigations into politicians from both major parties. Walter Giardina, that agent, was also fired last month.
Evans, another plaintiff, says he was targeted for revenge because he was in charge of the FBI's Human Resources Division when the COVID-19 pandemic started. In that job, he had to look over requests for accommodations from workers who didn't want to get vaccinated.
As a result of that job, Evans was constantly criticized by a former agent, who, according to the claim, shared his complaints about Evans on social media and kept in touch with Patel.
Evans was one of the top executives who were told at the end of January that they had to either quit or be fired. He was given a break and was able to keep his job. Even though Patel and Bongino told him they would back him up, he was told in May that he had to quit his job as head of the Las Vegas field office.
Evans was packing for a new FBI job in Huntsville, Alabama, on August 6, the claim says, when he found out he had been fired. The reason given was a "lack of reasonableness and overzealousness" in following COVID-19 guidelines. However, the lawsuit claims that he cannot remember ever turning down a request for a vaccine exemption.