WASHINGTON – FBI employees dismissed for their work on the investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified records at his Florida residence sued Thursday to regain their jobs, arguing that their terminations were unlawful acts of “political retribution.”
The lawsuit is the latest in an expanding series of legal challenges to mass dismissals carried out under FBI Director Kash Patel. The firings have targeted agents who worked on investigations involving the Republican president or who were viewed as opposing the Trump administration’s interests.
Filed in federal court in Washington, the complaint represents nine agents, intelligence analysts and staff operations specialists who were dismissed in February. Their terminations followed earlier firings of FBI personnel involved in the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.
Patel testified before Congress that the employees he dismissed had “weaponized” the FBI. The former employees reject that accusation, saying they collectively brought more than a century of distinguished, politically neutral service to the bureau. Their work included responding to the Boston Marathon bombing, recovering hostages and investigating the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The dismissals have caused an “immeasurable loss” to “America’s national security,” the lawsuit says.
“In return for their service, they were fired because they did their jobs, as they always did to follow the facts and law without bias or favor. To this administration, this is an offense. To the rest of us, it is heroic,” the employees’ attorneys, Margaret Donovan, Abbe Lowell and Rebecca Tinio, said in a statement.
“This lawsuit will prove their unlawful dismissal and hold the administration accountable for this blatant attack on the rule of law,” the lawyers added.
The Mar-a-Lago investigation produced criminal charges against Trump
The complaint recounts the allegations against Trump, asserting that he improperly kept dozens of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after taking them from the White House. It also alleges that he displayed some of the records to people without authorization and obstructed FBI efforts to recover them.
The investigation led to the FBI’s dramatic 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, where agents recovered classified records. It later resulted in a federal indictment in Florida charging Trump with dozens of felony offenses.
Trump denied wrongdoing. In 2024, the case was dismissed by Aileen Cannon, a judge appointed by Trump, who ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed by the Justice Department under the Biden administration.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Ex-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Denies New Torture Allegations Against Him and His Wife
According to the lawsuit, the nine employees did not volunteer for the classified documents investigation. They were assigned to it as part of their duties on specialized counterintelligence and counterespionage squads. Even so, the complaint says, they were fired because officials baselessly believed their law enforcement work had “run afoul of the political and personal loyalty to Trump that Defendants demanded.”
“By casting Plaintiffs’ work on the Plasmic Echo investigation as ‘politically weaponized,’ Defendants incorrectly presumed to know the personal political convictions of Plaintiffs and took unlawful action based on that presumption,” the lawsuit says, using the FBI’s code name for the classified records inquiry. “Worse still, Defendants incorrectly concluded that those personal political convictions affected or drove their work.”
The former employees are seeking reinstatement to the FBI, back pay and a court declaration that their dismissals were unlawful, among other remedies.
The suit says the firings were the culmination of a retribution campaign
The employees’ lawyers argue that their clients’ “fate was sealed” long before the February dismissals. They describe the firings as the endpoint of a broader retribution campaign that accelerated after Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
The complaint points to Patel’s previous comments as a conservative podcaster. Before becoming Trump’s FBI director, Patel called the Mar-a-Lago search “unlawful” and described the agents involved as “corrupt government gangsters.”
Days after Trump’s inauguration, a senior Justice Department official ordered the FBI to provide a list of bureau employees who had worked on investigations involving Trump. Then-FBI Director Brian Driscoll resisted the demand, which many employees viewed as a possible step toward mass dismissals.
During the following year, the FBI and Justice Department dismissed waves of employees connected to investigations involving Trump. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the workers were removed without hearings or adequate notice, protections they contend are required under the law.
The lawsuit says the Mar-a-Lago agents and analysts were fired last February after Patel told Reuters that the FBI had subpoenaed his telephone toll records during the investigation. Those records show the date, time and duration of calls, but not the substance of the conversations.
“The Plaintiffs were unlawfully terminated not for any cause or any legitimate reason, but only to satisfy the President’s personal vendetta,” the lawsuit states. “The firings did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the FBI, and Plaintiffs were not given any notice, a hearing, or an opportunity to appeal.”
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
YOU MAY ALSO READ: Video Shows Churchgoer Accusing Pastor Running for Congress