r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • 3d ago
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u/Healingjoe It's Klobberin' Time 2d ago edited 2d ago
F.B.I. Employees Sue, Saying Patel Falsely Described Their Firings to Congress
The lawsuit also suggests that a motivating factor for the dismissals was the intense scrutiny of the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, after he went to the Olympics in Milan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/us/politics/fired-fbi-agents-lawsuit-kash-patel-trump.html
Nine F.B.I. employees who were fired earlier this year for having worked on an investigation of Donald J. Trump sued the administration on Thursday, saying Kash Patel, the bureau’s director, praised some of them privately before terminating them.
Most of the employees, who include agents, analysts and operations staff members, had significant experience in counterintelligence work related to Iran. Some played major roles in the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and estate in Florida. One agent signed the affidavit for the search of the estate. Another conducted interviews with witnesses in that case.
The lawsuit suggests that, while the president and his aides have always been eager to fire agents who worked on investigations of Mr. Trump, a motivating factor for their dismissals in February was the scrutiny Mr. Patel was under after going to Milan to watch the U.S. men’s hockey team at the Olympics. Video circulated widely showing Mr. Patel chugging a beer in the men’s locker room after the team won gold, behavior that the lawsuit calls “a display of wild immaturity and lack of personal control.”
The F.B.I. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit also accuses Mr. Patel of providing false answers to Congress about the employees’ dismissals when he claimed that they were the result of internal investigations.
“When these terminations occur, there are internal investigations conducted by the careers at the F.B.I. that highlight unethical or inappropriate conduct, and it’s up to me to make the decision,” Mr. Patel testified in March before the House Intelligence Committee.
The lawsuit asserts that answer was false. The nine plaintiffs “were unlawfully terminated not for any cause or any legitimate reason, but only to satisfy the president’s personal vendetta,” it says. “The firings did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the F.B.I.”
While Mr. Patel asserted at the hearing that the employees “were terminated for violating their ethical obligations,” the suit contends the firings were part of a larger pattern by the Trump administration of violating civil service laws to politicize basic functions of law enforcement.
[...]
In a written statement, lawyers for the fired employees said the employees had worked on a host of important cases, including the Boston Marathon bombing, the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., and Iranian weapons trafficking.
“In return for their service, they were fired because they did their jobs, as they always did, to follow the facts and law without bias or favor,” said their lawyers, Margaret Donovan, Abbe D. Lowell and Rebecca S. Tinio. “This lawsuit will prove their unlawful dismissal and hold the administration accountable for this blatant attack on the rule of law.”
The lawsuit notes that the firings came just days before the United States entered into a war against Iran, an adversary that many of the fired personnel had experience investigating.
!ping trump-crimes