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WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of nine anonymous FBI agents asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block the Justice Department’s internal probe of employees who worked on massive investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and President Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
The agents brought the class action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, identifying themselves as FBI employees who worked on either case and have been informed they would be terminated this week. They request relief for at least 6,000 other agents.
The FBI Agents Association filed a similar lawsuit in the same court on behalf of seven anonymous agents.
Trump has swiftly moved to downplay the severity of the Jan. 6 attack and clear the Justice Department of top officials tied to his criminal cases, including members of former special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
In his first executive action upon returning to the Oval Office on Jan. 20, Trump issued a sweeping pardon of the nearly 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants, including commutations for 14 leaders of the far-right militias the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. After Trump’s order, a federal judge imposed and then quickly lifted restrictions on the Oath Keepers reentering Washington and the Capitol itself.
The agents said they or their supervisors were instructed on Sunday to fill out a survey that would identify their specific role in either case, which they argue would be used to create a list of agents to be terminated, face other adverse employment action or worse.
“Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons,” the agents said.
The agents claim the data collection, and using it to terminate workers or publishing it, would violate their First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and privacy rights. They asked a federal judge to bar the Justice Department from any “aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or dissemination” of any list or compilation of agents that would reveal their identities.
The agents defended their work on Jan. 6 prosecution, highlighting their extensive efforts to secure indictments, convictions, plea deals and sentences. They also revealed that several agents have been informed that their personal information has already been posted on the “dark web” by Jan. 6 convicted felons.
Even if the survey and their information is not made public, the agents expressed concern over certain nongovernmental agents who lack security clearance. They pointed to an incident this week where Elon Musk and employees of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency gained access to personal and financial information on tens of millions of Americans held by the Treasury Department.
Pamela Keith, an attorney of the Center for Employment Justice, represents the agents.
In the two weeks since Trump’s inauguration, the Justice Department and FBI have faced significant upheaval at the hands of Acting U.S. Attorney General James McHenry — U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is expected to be confirmed Tuesday — as well as Emil Bove, acting deputy U.S. attorney general, and Ed Martin, acting U.S. attorney for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
At the president’s direction, top officials in the Justice Department and FBI have been fired or transferred to less influentials positions, including more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on Smith’s cases against Trump.
On Friday, Martin dismissed about 30 federal prosecutors who have worked on the Jan. 6 cases over the last four years, after launching his own internal probe — separate from the one detailed in Tuesday’s lawsuit — of employees involved in the investigation.
According to an email obtained by the Washington Post, Bove directed that termination, calling the prosecutors’ hiring a “subversive” action by the Biden administration that slowed Martin’s ability to staff the office and “faithfully implement” Trump’s agenda.
A group of attorneys from the State Democracy Defenders Fund, including former Czech Republic Ambassador Norman Eisen, former U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts Nancy Gertner and national security lawyer Mark Zaid, urged Bove not to carry out mass terminations of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents.
“If you proceed with terminations and/or public exposure of terminated employees’ identities, we stand ready to vindicate their rights through all available league teams,” the attorneys said in the letter. “Of all people and entities, the Department of Justice and the FBI have a sacred obligation to keep the American people safe. You also have personally taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and you have ethical responsibilities as a Department employee and member of the bar.”
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