3 fired FBI officials sue Patel, saying he bowed to Trump administration's 'campaign of retribution'

Source: Scripps News/AP

Posted 15 minutes ago


Three high-ranking FBI officials were fired last month in a "campaign of retribution" carried out by a director who knew better but caved to political pressure from the Trump administration so he could keep his own position, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that seeks reinstatement of the agents.

The complaint asserts that Director Kash Patel indicated directly to one of the ousted agents, Brian Driscoll, that he knew the firings were "likely illegal" but was powerless to stop them because the White House and the Justice Department were determined to remove all agents who helped investigate President Donald Trump. It quotes Patel as having told Driscoll in a conversation last month, "the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn't forgotten it."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans, three of five agents known to have been fired last month in a purge that current and former officials say has unnerved the workforce. It represents a legal challenge from the top rungs of the FBI's leadership ladder to a flood of departures under Trump's Republican administration that has wiped out decades of experience. Fired agents have leveled unflattering allegations of a law enforcement agency whose personnel moves are shaped by the White House and guided more by politics than by public safety.

"Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people," the suit says. It adds that "his decision to do so degraded the country's national security by firing three of the FBI's most experienced operational leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime." Spokespeople for the FBI had declined to comment after the agents were ousted.

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/politics/the-president/3-fired-fbi-officials-sue-patel-saying-he-bowed-to-trump-administrations-campaign-of-retribution