FBI agents who investigated Jan. 6 and President Donald Trump’s now-dismissed classified documents case have reached a delicate agreement on how to stop the immediate public release of their identifying information.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb is a brief victory for a group of FBI employees who sued the Justice Department only days ago, alleging violations of their First and Fifth Amendment rights. The agents also said they were fearful of retaliation after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove demanded a list and surveys of agents or personnel who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
The list contained titles and assignment details tied to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and other Trump-related cases. Bove, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer in his criminal hush-money case, defended the request by pointing to Trump’s executive order purporting to end the “weaponization” of government.
However, attorneys representing the FBI agents said the information gathering was “politically motivated.”
The lawyers argued that the list Bove is compiling is being used to unlawfully purge at least 6,000 staff from the FBI’s ranks. They told Judge Cobb on Thursday that agents were profoundly worried about their and their families’ safety should the information be leaked or somehow made public without redactions — or if the information “makes its way to Mr. [Elon] Musk,” Norm Eisen, one attorney representing the agents, told the judge.
Cobb’s order on Friday defers a decision on the temporary restraining order. For now, the government has agreed not to share the information publicly without providing two days’ notice. It doesn’t contain any language specifying whether a specific person or entity is barred access to the list.
Minions of unelected billionaire Musk, who now heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have already barged into a slew of government offices seeking access to sensitive data, including records from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the U.S. Treasury andthe Office of Personnel Management, spurring a raft of lawsuits.
Musk’s underlings have been seen at FBI headquarters, too, CNN reported last week. It was unclear on Friday whether DOGE associates have already burrowed into the Justice Department itself.
During proceedings Thursday, attorneys for the FBI agents highlighted their concerns about Musk’s well-documented history of posting the identities of individual federal workers he would like to see fired. (Rolling Stone noted in November that Musk had highlighted several workers by name online, spurring abuse and harassment against them.)
The lawyers said there is also the ongoing problem of several Jan. 6 pardonees who appear eager to exact revenge.
As news of Bove’s survey started circulating earlier this week, for example, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy after a monthslong trial and then pardoned by Trump last month, specifically called out one agent by name and demanded she be “brought to justice and made to answer for her crimes.”
As HuffPost reported this week, some FBI employees have said their information has already been posted on the “dark web” by now-pardoned Jan. 6 convicted felons.
Acting Director of the FBI Brian Driscoll responded to Bove’s memo earlier this week. When Driscoll first submitted the list of agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, he did not include names, just employee numbers. This step was not entirely useful for protecting employee identities overall, however, because personal or professional email addresses are still visible in the chain of responses, FBI lawyers said. On Thursday night, Driscoll disclosed that Bove had ordered him to submit the names as well, and he complied.
In court Thursday, Judge Cobb asked U.S. Attorney Jeremy Simon several times to declare definitively whether he knew if anyone outside of the Justice Department or FBI, including at the White House of DOGE, had gained access to the information.
Simon answered, “Standing here today, all I can say is nothing indicates that occurred.”
“I don’t have reason to believe it occurred,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Cobb will next hear arguments on whether she should issue a preliminary injunction to stop the list’s dissemination completely. She will also consider whether Bove’s directive violates FBI agents’ civil rights.
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Initially, two separate groups of plaintiffs — a group of FBI agents and the FBI Agents Association — filed two different lawsuits against the Justice Department, but Cobb consolidated the suits on Thursday. The parties are scheduled to appear in court on March 27.
Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the FBI Agents Association, told HuffPost Friday via email that the order “ensures that FBI Agents who are keeping our country and our communities safe can continue to do their jobs without fear of public exposure or retaliation.”
“We will continue to do everything in our power to protect the FBI community from retaliation and appreciate that the Court treated this matter with the urgency it deserves,” Mattei said.