A group of FBI agents sued the U.S. Justice Department in a lawsuit on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to step in and stop the publication of a list they say the bureau is actively compiling of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases or helped investigate President Donald Trump while he was criminally indicted.
Moreover, the lawsuit makes an explosive claim: that personal identifying information about some of these agents has appeared on the so-called dark web.
The agents, who are not named in the civil lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., say that on Feb. 2, they were told to complete a survey that would identify the “specific role” they played in investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case. The agents allege they were all targeted for firings starting Feb. 3 and that those terminations are slated to continue through Feb. 9, at least.
The agents’ lawyers say some of their clients have already been told that their personal information has been shared on the dark web by convicted Jan. 6 rioters and that exposure of the list would only exacerbate the current threats they face.They also “legitimately fear” that their information will be exposed because of what is happening now with Elon Musk and his government takeover, according to their attorneys.
“It has been widely reported that Elon Musk and persons working with him have recently attempted to access government databases that house personal information, without regard to security protocols, and without a legitimate business purpose,” wrote attorneys Pamela Keith and Scott Lempert with the Center for Employment Justice. “Plaintiffs legitimately fear that the information being compiled will be accessed by persons who are not authorized to have access to it, and who lack the requisite security clearances to handle such information.”
As HuffPost reported Tuesday, the White House has denied that an aide to Musk, who is currently the head of the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has administrative privileges at the Treasury Department’s payment system.
According to their lawsuit, the FBI agents say that some of them were told to complete the survey about their roles in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations themselves, while others were told a supervisor would complete the survey and send it off to higher-ups.
“Plaintiffs assert that the purpose of 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 Donald Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons,” the lawsuit claims.
The Justice Department’s gathering, retention and disclosure of their investigative work violates their First and Fifth Amendment rights, the agents claim, and if the list goes public, it would also violate federal laws around privacy that have been in place since the 1970s.
According to the 16-page claim, the lawsuit intends to represent at least 6,000 current and former FBI agents or staff who participated in the prosecution or investigation of crimes tied to Trump or those acting on his behalf.
The lawsuit alleges that “politically motivated and unlawful” firings directed by Trump started in earnest at the Justice Department on Feb. 1, and that FBI agents learned via teleconference the next day that they would likely see a similar purge unfold when they were asked to complete a survey about their activities related to the Jan. 6 cases.
The survey took a large swath of personal information that could be included in a public list, like email addresses and employee ID numbers.
Even if the survey isn’t used to compile a list for firing, the agents say they are still concerned the information will be used to flag them for demotions and promotions going forward.
“Donald Trump has made repeated public pronouncements of his intent to exact revenge upon persons he perceives to be disloyal to him by simply executing their duties in investigating acts incited by him and persons loyal to him,” Keith and Lempert wrote. “Whatever the Trump administration believes about Plaintiffs’ political affiliation, it clearly believes that persons who were involved in the investigation and prosecution of Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases are insufficiently politically affiliated with Donald Trump to be entitled to retain their employment.”
The agents are seeking to immediately enjoin any aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or sharing of any list that would identify FBI personnel or tie them to Jan. 6 or Mar-a-Lago cases.
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A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
A separate lawsuit was also filed by another group of FBI agents represented by private attorneys Mark Zaid and Bradley Moss, as well as lawyer Norm Eisen for the State Democracy Defenders Fund and Christopher Mattei, counsel for the FBI Agents Association. Zaid and Eisen issued a warning 24 hours in advance that legal action would be forthcoming.
In this lawsuit, the agents are similarly asking the court to stop “any further collection or dissemination of personally identifiable information” that might have been collected in the surveys. They allege that the Justice Department is taking steps to begin a “mass, unlawful termination” of employees in violation of their civil rights.