Twelve ex-FBI agents who kneeled to quell 2020 protests sue for unlawful firings
By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Twelve former FBI agents sued top FBI and Justice Department officials on Monday, claiming they were illegally fired for kneeling to suppress racial justice protests in 2020, spurred by the police killing of George Floyd.
In the lawsuit, the former agents said they believed their firings were “ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, and that FBI Director Kash Patel was determined to remove them from their positions as soon as he was confirmed.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, did not name the officers, nine of whom are women. This comes after top FBI leaders in September, including former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, also filed a lawsuit over their firing, claiming they were fired as part of a “retaliatory campaign.”
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.
FLOYD’S KILLING PROCEEDED WITH GENERATED PROTESTS
The killing of Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer in May 2020 sparked a wave of protests around the world, including in Washington, DC. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr deployed federal agents, including agents from the FBI’s Washington field office, to try to quell civil unrest.
On June 4, 2020, while a group of FBI agents were near the National Archives, a swarm of protesters surrounded them and pushed them against a wall. Amid the chaos, several officers took a knee. Soon others followed suit after noticing it helped defuse the crowd.
The agents’ decision to kneel was later reviewed by senior FBI officials, who determined that the agents took the action to quell “chaos, not for political reasons.”
Photographs of the kneeling officers went viral on social media and prompted some Trump supporters to accuse them of kneeling in support of left-wing movements.
Trump focuses on incident
In 2023, Trump also drew attention to the incident, posting a report on the agents on his Truth Social account in which then-U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz accused them of later receiving “prune” promotions at the FBI.
In Monday’s lawsuit, several former officers said they were abruptly demoted from their supervisory positions in April because of the kneeling incident.
After that, Patel ordered Steve Jensen, the former head of the FBI’s Washington field office who was also later fired, to make a list of the names of everyone who knelt that day, according to the lawsuit. Jensen convinced Patel to first open an internal investigation, before taking personal action.
But in September, while the internal review was still underway and no decisions had been made, the officers were fired, according to the lawsuit.
In the termination letters, which accused the agents of “unprofessional conduct and lack of impartiality” that led to the “militarization” of the FBI, Patel claimed to have reviewed all elements of the internal investigation.
The lawsuit says evidence from those internal investigations showed the opposite of what Patel claimed.
“Defendants targeted Plaintiffs specifically because of Plaintiffs’ use of de-escalation with civilians whom Defendants perceived to be opposed to or unaffiliated with President Trump,” the lawsuit states.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis and Matthew Lewis)
