It's going to be a good presidency for attorneys!:
A group of nine FBI agents asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block the Trump administration’s efforts to collect information on thousands of case agents across the country who worked on investigations tied to President Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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Attorneys for the agents, who filed suit anonymously in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said any effort to use that information as a basis to fire FBI employees would be unlawful, retaliatory and a violation of civil service protections.
They also raised concerns that administration officials might make public the names of agents involved in those cases, “placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons.”
Each of the plaintiffs in the suit worked either on a Jan. 6 case or the investigations into Trump’s alleged efforts to block the 2020 election results and his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term as president, their lawsuit states. They are seeking class-action status to represent roughly 6,000 affected agents nationwide.
The lawsuits seeks to bar the Justice Department from any “aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or dissemination” of any list or compilation of agents that would identify agents and other personnel.
“The very act of compiling lists of persons who worked on matters that upset Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature, intended to intimidate FBI agents and other personnel, and to discourage them from reporting any future malfeasance by [the president] and his agents,” wrote attorneys Pamela M. Keith and Scott M. Lempert of the Center for Employment Justice.
Interim FBI leadership had a noon deadline Tuesday to hand over details on the work of potentially thousands of agents and employees across the country who worked on cases involving rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
That information will be reviewed by Trump appointees at the Justice Department and could be used to justify “personnel actions,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said in a memo to acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll last week.
That survey of FBI personnel — coupled with the separate purging last week of eight senior officials who had worked under former FBI director Christopher A. Wray — has set off a panic within the bureau about its future, according to multiple people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive matter.
Driscoll, a longtime agent whom Trump appointed to run the bureau until a permanent director is confirmed, has refused to endorse any mass effort to purge agents, the people said.
In an email to FBI staff on Friday, Driscoll noted that both he and Robert Kissane, the FBI’s acting deputy director, would be included in the list of agents who had worked on Jan. 6 cases. He stressed that they did not consider an agent’s mere presence on the list as a sign of malfeasance.
In their suit Tuesday, the agents noted: “FBI agents are tasked by their chain of command and leadership team, and are not free to refuse assignments based on their political and personal preferences.”
The nine FBI agents accused Trump himself of ordering the purge. Their lawsuit cited Trump’s speeches on the campaign trail in which he vowed to seek revenge on those those who prosecuted Jan. 6 cases.
“During his campaign for office, Mr. Trump repeatedly stated that he would personify ‘the vengeance’ or ‘the retribution,’ for those whom he called ‘political hostages,’ for their actions during the Jan. 6 attack,” the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs also describe the severity of the Jan 6 crimes they investigated and say the rioters breached the Capitol to show their support for Trump.
“A recurring theme in the trials of the Jan. 6 Defendants is that they appeared at the Capitol, and engaged in violent action at the urging and direct request of Donald Trump,” the lawsuit states. “It is also undisputed that while Donald Trump was keenly aware of the violence taking place at the Capitol on that day, for hours he did nothing to intercede or persuade the Jan. 6 Rioters to cease their activity.”
In addition to potential legal challenges, any immediate, mass dismissal of agents could impact the FBI’s efforts to investigate violent crime and terrorism threats, because most or all of the affected agents would have multiple other cases ongoing that are not related to the Capitol attack.
Removing hundreds or thousands of FBI personnel would also deplete experience and staffing levels at the bureau in ways that would be difficult to address quickly. New agents undergo intensive screening and specialized training programs before they can be deployed in the field.
Under standard FBI procedures, agents are entitled to receive any proposed punishments or disciplinary determinations against them in writing before they are finalized, and are granted an opportunity to respond in proceedings before a deciding officer. If they choose, they can hire legal representation and appeal findings against them.
A group of nine FBI agents asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block the Trump administration’s efforts to collect information on thousands of case agents across the country who worked on investigations tied to President Donald Trump or the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics.
Attorneys for the agents, who filed suit anonymously in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said any effort to use that information as a basis to fire FBI employees would be unlawful, retaliatory and a violation of civil service protections.
They also raised concerns that administration officials might make public the names of agents involved in those cases, “placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons.”
Each of the plaintiffs in the suit worked either on a Jan. 6 case or the investigations into Trump’s alleged efforts to block the 2020 election results and his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term as president, their lawsuit states. They are seeking class-action status to represent roughly 6,000 affected agents nationwide.
The lawsuits seeks to bar the Justice Department from any “aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or dissemination” of any list or compilation of agents that would identify agents and other personnel.
“The very act of compiling lists of persons who worked on matters that upset Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature, intended to intimidate FBI agents and other personnel, and to discourage them from reporting any future malfeasance by [the president] and his agents,” wrote attorneys Pamela M. Keith and Scott M. Lempert of the Center for Employment Justice.
Interim FBI leadership had a noon deadline Tuesday to hand over details on the work of potentially thousands of agents and employees across the country who worked on cases involving rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
That information will be reviewed by Trump appointees at the Justice Department and could be used to justify “personnel actions,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said in a memo to acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll last week.
That survey of FBI personnel — coupled with the separate purging last week of eight senior officials who had worked under former FBI director Christopher A. Wray — has set off a panic within the bureau about its future, according to multiple people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive matter.
Driscoll, a longtime agent whom Trump appointed to run the bureau until a permanent director is confirmed, has refused to endorse any mass effort to purge agents, the people said.
In an email to FBI staff on Friday, Driscoll noted that both he and Robert Kissane, the FBI’s acting deputy director, would be included in the list of agents who had worked on Jan. 6 cases. He stressed that they did not consider an agent’s mere presence on the list as a sign of malfeasance.
In their suit Tuesday, the agents noted: “FBI agents are tasked by their chain of command and leadership team, and are not free to refuse assignments based on their political and personal preferences.”
The nine FBI agents accused Trump himself of ordering the purge. Their lawsuit cited Trump’s speeches on the campaign trail in which he vowed to seek revenge on those those who prosecuted Jan. 6 cases.
“During his campaign for office, Mr. Trump repeatedly stated that he would personify ‘the vengeance’ or ‘the retribution,’ for those whom he called ‘political hostages,’ for their actions during the Jan. 6 attack,” the lawsuit states.
The plaintiffs also describe the severity of the Jan 6 crimes they investigated and say the rioters breached the Capitol to show their support for Trump.
“A recurring theme in the trials of the Jan. 6 Defendants is that they appeared at the Capitol, and engaged in violent action at the urging and direct request of Donald Trump,” the lawsuit states. “It is also undisputed that while Donald Trump was keenly aware of the violence taking place at the Capitol on that day, for hours he did nothing to intercede or persuade the Jan. 6 Rioters to cease their activity.”
In addition to potential legal challenges, any immediate, mass dismissal of agents could impact the FBI’s efforts to investigate violent crime and terrorism threats, because most or all of the affected agents would have multiple other cases ongoing that are not related to the Capitol attack.
Removing hundreds or thousands of FBI personnel would also deplete experience and staffing levels at the bureau in ways that would be difficult to address quickly. New agents undergo intensive screening and specialized training programs before they can be deployed in the field.
Under standard FBI procedures, agents are entitled to receive any proposed punishments or disciplinary determinations against them in writing before they are finalized, and are granted an opportunity to respond in proceedings before a deciding officer. If they choose, they can hire legal representation and appeal findings against them.
