Three former FBI agents sued the Trump administration on Tuesday on behalf of all of the bureau’s recently fired agents, alleging agency leaders retaliated against them for political reasons.
The ex-agents who brought the suit — Jamie Garman, Blaire Toleman and Michelle Ball — all worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. They were fired last fall after between eight and 14 years at the bureau.
While many agents who have been let go in Trump’s second term have sued individually, this is the first lawsuit of its kind, seeking class action status that would allow the plaintiffs to press the case on behalf of agents who have been fired since Jan. 1, 2025, and any others yet to be fired by the defendants: the FBI, the Justice Department, FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The plaintiffs alleged Patel and Bondi “have, since the beginning of 2025, embarked on a public campaign to oust Plaintiffs from federal service because Defendants perceived them to be political opponents — as if fidelity to the law and the proper execution of assignments were somehow hostile partisan acts.” “Stripping away due process protections for career law enforcement agents sends a clear message: they will not be protected when their work challenges the powerful. It also sends a troubling signal to everyone in the criminal justice system — from officers to those accused of crimes — that the law can be applied arbitrarily,” it said. Separately, a recent MS NOW analysis found Patel fired FBI agents and staff members after moments of intense public backlash. After four separate occasions when Patel was painted in an unfavorable light in the media, like when he used an FBI jet to travel to the Winter Olympics in Italy last month and was recorded drinking beer with the U.S. men’s hockey team, he engaged in what some have characterized as a firing spree. The FBI Agents Association, which represents more than 14,000 active and former FBI special agents, called the firings unjustified and illegal, saying it undermined the bureau.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.
“Our clients are career FBI agents who devoted years of their lives to protecting the American people and upholding the rule of law. They were removed from federal service without an investigation, notice of charges, or an opportunity to be heard,” the law firm representing them, Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, said in a statement.
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“An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination,” the FBIAA said in a statement at the time of the plaintiffs’ firings. “Director Patel has disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution.”
The FBI and DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
