By Allan Lengel
In developments never seen before, two sets of anonymous FBI agents who worked on cases Jan. 6 cases and criminal probes into Donald Trump filed lawsuits Tuesday to block the Justice Department from compiling lists of agents’ names that could be used for retaliation.
The suits, filed by the Center for Employment Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association, express concern that the lists could be used to fire people who were only doing their job, or end up in the wrong hands and pose a physical danger to agents and their families. Thousands of agents worked on the Jan. 6 cases around the country, and many worked on the documents case in Florida at Mar-a-Lago.
At the same time, one suit squarely places some blame on Trump for the Jan. 6 riot, something that may only reinforce Trump’s concern about what he perceives as disloyalty in the bureau.
“It is also undisputed that while Donald Trump was keenly aware of the violence taking
place at the Capitol on that day, for hours he did nothing to intercede or persuade the Jan. 6 Rioters
to cease their activity,” one suit said.
“Information obtained during the investigation of the Jan. 6 attack also established that Mr.
Trump was an active participant in the planning of the attack on the Capitol, and of the coordinated
effort by some members of Congress to evade certification of the election results.”
Reuters reports that the suits were filed ahead of a 3 p.m. deadline imposed by Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, ordering FBI leadership to turn over a list of every FBI employee who helped with the Jan. 6 investigation.
The news service reports that Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll turned over the requested list. But instead of names, it simply listed workers by their “unique employee identifier” as well as “their title at the time of the relevant investigation or prosecution, the office to which they are currently assigned, their role in the relevant investigation or prosecution and the date of last activity related to the investigation or prosecution.”
“It is clear that the threatened disclosure is a prelude to an unlawful purge of the F.B.I. driven solely by the Trump administration’s vengeful and political motivations,” Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the FBI Agents Association, said in a statement, according to the New York Times. “Releasing the names of these agents would ignite a firestorm of harassment towards them and their families, and it must be stopped immediately.”
