Left: George Floyd in a picture provided by his family's attorney (Ben Crump). Right: FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and Attorney General Pam Bondi arrive for a news conference at the Department of Justice, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A dozen fired counterintelligence and counterterrorism special agents are anonymously suing FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, claiming their ousters violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.
Nine Jane Does and three John Does filed suit Monday in Washington, D.C., federal court claiming that they were unlawfully punished for making a "tactical decision" to engage in a "kneeling posture" rather than unleashing a Boston Massacre-style response to a "mob" of "hostile individuals," as protests over George Floyd's murder by ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin unfolded in the nation's capital on June 4, 2020.
"The volatile situation was comparable to another critical moment from our nation's Founding: the Boston Massacre. But Plaintiffs did not repeat the mistakes of the British soldiers who fearfully fired their weapons into a crowd of dissenting Americans in 1770. Instead, finding their backs to a wall, Plaintiffs remained calm," the lawsuit said. "Each Plaintiff then made a considered tactical decision focused on saving American lives and maintaining order. Responding to the dangerous situation before them, Plaintiffs avoided triggering violence by assuming a kneeling posture associated with de-escalations between law enforcement officers and their communities during this period of national unrest."
While the "tactical decision to kneel" was "immediately successful," and although a subsequent review of the agents' actions was deemed "consistent with FBI policy and warrant[ing] no adverse action of any kind," Bondi's DOJ and Patel's FBI "want[ed] to rewrite history" more than five years later, the suit alleged.
"After an internal review process — triggered in 2025 by Defendant Patel himself — again failed to fault Plaintiffs' actions in June 2020, Defendants nevertheless announced Plaintiffs' unlawful terminations in identical single-page letters accusing them of 'unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government,'" the complaint said.
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It was not the agents who decided to kneel, but the defendants who "are weaponizing government for political reasons," the plaintiffs added.
"Defendants' conduct in terminating Plaintiffs reflects an astounding lack of professionalism and lack of impartiality by the government and violates Plaintiffs' constitutional rights under the First and Fifth Amendments," the suit said.
Three months ago, Patel and Bondi were hit with a separate lawsuit filed by fired FBI officials claiming they were casualties of President Donald Trump's political "retribution" campaign — by the FBI director's own alleged admission.
"[Patel] explained he had to fire the people his superiors told him to fire, because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President. Patel explained that there was nothing he or [Brian] Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because 'the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn't forgotten it,'" the September complaint said. "Driscoll indicated his belief that Patel's reference to his superiors meant DOJ and the White House, and Patel did not deny it."
Read the latest lawsuit here.