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Three high-ranking FBI officials who were fired last month have sued Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, over their ‘illegal termination.’ The lawsuit by Brian Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans alleged that they were fired in a “campaign of retribution” carried out by a director who knew better but caved to political pressure from the Trump administration so he could keep his own position.
Five FBI agents were fired last month in a purge that current and former officials say has unnerved the workforce. The suit filed in federal court in Washington, where judges and grand juries have pushed back against Trump administration initiatives and charging decisions also named the FBI, the Justice Department and the Executive Office of the President as defendants.
The complaint asserts that 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 helped investigate President Donald Trump.
It quotes Patel as having told Driscoll in a conversation last month, “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.”
Fired agents have leveled unflattering allegations of 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 prioritise politicising the FBI over protecting the American people,” the suit says.
It adds that “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.”
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.
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.
Another of their attorneys, Abbe Lowell, said the lawsuit shows FBI leadership is “carrying out political orders to punish law enforcement agents for doing their jobs.”
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