A dozen FBI agents who lost their jobs earlier this year after they were photographed kneeling during a Black Lives Matter protest in Washington following the 2020 murder of George Floyd have sued their former employer and the Trump administration to get their jobs back.
The nine women and three men claimed in the Monday filing that they were “unlawfully terminated” by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel in violation of their First and Fifth Amendment rights.
The plaintiffs, described in the lawsuit as “highly trained counterintelligence and counterterrorism Special Agents” were photographed kneeling during a June 4, 2020, demonstration in the nation’s capital in response to the May 25 killing of Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
The agents’ lawsuit claims the protest “included hostile individuals alongside families with young children” and likened the tense situation to “another critical moment from our nation’s Founding: the Boston Massacre.”
Noting that they were not equipped with protective gear or non-lethal munitions for crowd control, the agents said they “made a considered tactical decision focused on saving American lives and maintaining order … As a result of their tactical decision to kneel, the mass of people moved on without escalating to violence. Plaintiffs did not need to discharge their firearms that day. Plaintiffs saved American lives.”
Soon after, the agents met with then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who told them, the suit says, “that he understood Plaintiffs had de-escalated a dangerous situation and expressed that he was glad Plaintiffs had come back from the deployment safely.”
Then-Deputy Director David Bowditch, responsible for personnel, also told the agents “they would not be penalized” for their actions while an internal review cleared them of potential violations of the Hatch Act, which bar civil service workers from political activities.
After President Trump took office this past January, the lawsuit claims White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller began pushing for “summary firings” of agents. After Patel was confirmed as FBI director Feb. 21, at least four of the female agents were reassigned from high-ranking positions in the bureau.
This past spring, the court documents say, Patel asked Washington Field Office boss Steven Jensen — who was dismissed in August for “failing to execute and perform requested tasks” — to provide
a list of FBI personnel involved in the kneeling event, presumably so that Defendant Patel could terminate them en masse.”
Jensen persuaded Patel to allow an internal investigation to take place before any further action was taken.
With the outcome of the internal probe still pending, the agents were fired Sept. 26 for “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government.”
