FBI leaders allege in lawsuit they were unlawfully fired over political loyalty
Before he was briefly named FBI’s acting director early this year, Brian Driscoll says, he got a call from a Trump administration official who peppered him with a series of pointed questions that appeared to be a loyalty test.
Among them: “Who did you vote for?” “When did you start supporting President Trump?” “Have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections?” “Do you agree that the FBI agents who stormed Mar-a-Lago … should be held accountable?”
Driscoll, promoted to the temporary post despite refusing to answer most of the questions, detailed the episode in a federal lawsuit Wednesday in which he and two other former senior FBI officials allege they were ultimately fired by eventual FBI Director Kash Patel for unlawful and politically motivated reasons that often appeared to be in response to social media posts from far-right critics.
“Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people,” the lawsuit states. “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.”
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is the first lawsuit from former FBI agents that challenges the administration’s unprecedented government employment terminations. It provides a rare view into how politically appointed leaders allegedly dismantled long-standing norms and appeared determined to indiscriminately fire anyone that they deemed may be disloyal to the president
Driscoll, who had worked at the bureau for two decades, recounted in the lawsuit that he refused to answer many of those questions because talking politics on the job was inappropriate and could violate a federal law barring such conversations by government employees.
According to the lawsuit, then-acting deputy attorney Emil Bove told Driscoll that he had “failed” the vetting interview, but that he would vouch for his character and push for him to serve in a top role until Patel was confirmed by the Senate.
Driscoll’s month-long tenure came to be defined, however, by his resistance to Bove’s demand to fire eight senior FBI executives and identify “the core team” behind the Capitol riot investigations. Driscoll refused to hand over the names, prompting Bove to accuse top FBI leaders of “insubordination.”
In response, Bove demanded the names of every FBI agent or employee across the country who had touched any of the Jan. 6, 2021, cases. A brief standoff ensued, ending when Driscoll eventually provided the Justice Department with a list of more than 5,000 bureau personnel, identified only by employee ID number.
Driscoll assumed another senior role once Patel arrived, but he alleges in the lawsuit that he was fired in August when he refused Trump administration orders to fire a military veteran and pilot who flew the FBI’s private plane because he was involved in the 2022 raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
“Patel then stated that his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on the cases against the President, regardless of whether the agents chose to work on those cases or not,” the lawsuit states.
The other two fired FBI officials who filed the lawsuit – Steven Jensen, head of the FBI’s Washington field office, and Spencer Evans, who led the Las Vegas field office – recounted similar experiences.
Jensen had been a target of right-wing critics online because of his involvement in the Capitol riot investigations. Still, the lawsuit alleges that Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino supported Jensen and sent him numerous complimentary notes about his work.
Jensen alleges in the lawsuit that he once discovered a distraught Bongino at FBI headquarters who said he found “burn bags” related to the now-closed investigation into possible ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The “burn bags” became a right-wing talking point as commentators online tried to portray the FBI as corrupt.
The lawsuit alleges that as part of that encounter, Bongino asked Jensen to fire an FBI agent whom online critics believed was corrupt. It says Jensen pushed back, saying that the agent was a military veteran entitled to certain rights and not involved in the 2016 investigation into Trump’s presidential campaign.
Bongino backed down, but in August, Jensen and the agent were fired.
Evans had also been the subject of right-wing attacks because of his role in approving and denying FBI agent requests for COVID-19 protocol exemptions during the pandemic. Even as Patel and Bongino complimented Evans’s work, the online attacks continued. Evans alleges in the lawsuit that he was demoted and eventually fired.
“You demonstrated a lack of reasonableness and overzealousness in the implementation of COVID-19 protocols and policies,” Evans’s termination letter read, which was included in the lawsuit.