Washington The Department of Justice is facing lawsuits from two groups of unnamed FBI agents who took part in investigations on January 6. The agents claim they were asked to complete a survey about their involvement, if any, in those investigations or the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged possession of classified documents at his Florida home during his time as president.
The complaint, filed in the federal district court in D.C., claims that the survey’s specific goal “is to identify agents and other FBI personnel to be terminated as a form of politically motivated retribution,” according to nine FBI agents.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs claim that this list is used to identify agents who may be fired or subject to other unfavorable employment actions. “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.”
The complaint goes on to say that the agents have been told they will probably be fired for their work on the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations very soon.
In the complaint, attorneys Pamela Keith and Scott Lempert state that they plan to represent a class of at least 6,000 current and former FBI agents and employees who were involved in some way in the investigation and prosecution of crimes and abuses of power committed by Donald Trump or by those working under his direction.
Keith, a former Democratic candidate for Congress, has posted baseless conspiracy theories on social media regarding the July 2024 murder attempt on Trump, the pro-Republican election outcomes, and other significant occurrences.
The FBI agents are claiming that the Justice Department has violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights. They are attempting to prevent the collection, archiving, reporting, publishing, or distribution of any list or compilation of data that would directly link FBI agents and other staff to the activities of the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases.
According to the lawsuit, they are especially worried about the continued broadcast of their personal information after learning that some of it has already been made public on the dark web by convicted felons on January 6.
In a similar vein, the second lawsuit, which names the FBI Agents Association and seven unnamed FBI agents as plaintiffs, asks the court to shield the defendants from the Justice Department’s planned retaliatory decision to reveal their personal information for criticism and possible vigilante action by the people they were looking into.
According to the first lawsuit, the conduct of assembling names of individuals who worked on issues that angered Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature. Its goal is to scare FBI agents and other staff members into not reporting any future wrongdoing by Donald Trump and his operatives.
“Plaintiffs therefore respectfully seek immediate relief to enjoin the aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or dissemination of any list or compilation of information that would identify FBI agents and other personnel, and tie them directly to Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago case activities,” the complaint states.