FBI agents said any effort to review or discriminate against employees involved in the Jan. 6 investigations would be “unlawful and retaliatory,” and a violation of civil service protections.
A group of nine FBI agents filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the public identification of any FBI employees who worked on the Jan. 6 investigations into the U.S. Capitol riots in an attempt to head off what they described as potentially retaliatory efforts against personnel involved in the probe.
The plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit anonymously in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that any effort to review or discriminate against FBI employees involved in the Jan. 6 investigations would be “unlawful and retaliatory,” and a violation of civil service protections under federal law.
The lawsuit cited the questionnaire employees were required to fill out detailing their specific role in the Jan. 6 investigation and Mar-a-Lago investigation led by former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
FBI AGENTS GROUP TELLS CONGRESS TO TAKE URGENT ACTION TO PROTECT AGAINST POLITICIZATION
“Some Plaintiffs were required to fill out the survey themselves, others were told that their supervisors would be filling out the form,” the lawsuit noted, adding that the employees “were informed that the aggregated information is going to be forwarded to upper management.”
“Plaintiffs assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action. 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.”
FBI AGENTS GROUP TELLS CONGRESS TO TAKE URGENT ACTION TO PROTECT AGAINST POLITICIZATION
The information gathering attempt sparked concern from both the FBI agents and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent’s Association (FBIAA), a voluntary professional association representing more than 14,000 active and retired FBI special agents.
FBIAA filed a separate lawsuit Tuesday afternoon. Like the lawsuit filed by the nine FBI agents, the agents represented in the FBIAA suit are also seeking immediate injunctive relief to block any public release of information about their role in the Jan. 6 investigation – either as detailed by themselves or their supervisors in the Jan. 6 questionnaire sent out by the Trump administration.
Lawyers for the group noted that the survey in question “does not afford them any opportunity to defend their honor or reputation, and does not give them an opportunity to challenge any perceptions regarding the propriety of their actions,” and is a violation of the agents’ due process rights.
FBI AGENTS DETAIL J6 ROLE IN EXHAUSTIVE QUESTIONNAIRE EMPLOYEES ‘WERE INSTRUCTED TO FILL OUT’
The lawsuits come as the FBI said Tuesday afternoon that it has provided the Justice Department with a list of personnel who worked on Jan. 6 investigations and criminal cases, in keeping with an earlier deadline provided by DOJ.
Former Justice Department officials have cited concerns that the probe or any retaliatory measures carried out as a result could have a chilling effect on the work of the FBI, including its more than 52 separate field offices.
But one retired FBI agent urged calm, noting to Fox News that the acting director and deputy director of the FBI still remain in place. This person also stressed that the Jan. 6 investigation and the FBI personnel involved in investigating each case “fully followed Bureau and DOJ guidelines,” and that violations of federal statutes were “proven beyond a reasonable doubt in federal courts of law.”
President Donald Trump declined to answer questions on Monday over whether his administration would remove FBI employees involved in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, telling reporters only that he believes the bureau is “corrupt” and that his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, will “straighten it out.”
To date, there are no known plans to conduct sweeping removals or take punitive action against the agents involved.
