Summary
Two former FBI agents fired last year said in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington that they were terminated “solely” for their participation in an investigation into President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The agents, identified in the complaint as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, said the terminations followed their roles in a broader personnel purge targeting employees connected to an FBI investigation known as “Arctic Frost.” The lawsuit argues that their firings were tied to the investigation rather than any performance issue, and it seeks reinstatement along with a court declaration that the dismissals were unlawful.
According to the lawsuit, both agents were abruptly terminated last fall despite “spotless disciplinary records” and what the complaint describes as “exemplary” performance ratings. The complaint states that the agents were given no explanation for the decisions, and it ties the timing to political disclosures that followed congressional involvement in the Arctic Frost matter.
The suit says that the unredacted Justice Department documents were released after Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, along with other Trump allies, asserted that Arctic Frost was politically motivated. The complaint contends that those documents exposed the name of one of the agents, and that the termination decisions came soon after.
In court filings, one portion of the complaint addresses the asserted rationale for the firings. It says, “Plaintiffs’ terminations were unlawful because they were based on a perception that Plaintiffs were not political supporters of President Trump.” The complaint adds: “Political support for President Trump is not a legal or appropriate requirement for the effective performance of Plaintiffs’ respective roles within the FBI.”
The lawsuit also provides details about the circumstances of the dismissals. One of the fired agents said he was about to go trick-or-treating with his children when he was summoned to the FBI’s Washington field office and given a termination notice. The other agent said he was similarly summoned and told that he was being fired several days later, with the complaint describing that agent as the only case agent or the most senior case agent on active local public corruption cases.
In addition, the complaint says the agents followed DOJ policies and procedures in their Arctic Frost work and executed their law enforcement duties “without bias or political motive.” It also describes one agent’s career and specialization in white-collar, public corruption and fraud cases, and says he received a Medal of Excellence. The complaint says the other agent graduated from the FBI Academy in 2018 and, at the time of his firing, worked on public corruption cases and had directly briefed Patel on a particular investigation.
The lawsuit further says the agents were assigned at first to a supporting, rather than leading, role in the Arctic Frost investigation. The filing also describes other employees who have previously sued following similar FBI personnel changes, including agents photographed kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest and a group of senior officials, including the former acting director of the FBI, who were terminated last summer.
In a statement, one of the agents’ lawyers, Margaret Donovan, said Patel went back on a promise not to fire agents based on the cases they were assigned, adding that her clients “were among the Bureau’s finest, and they deserve better.” Another lawyer, Elizabeth Tulis, said the agents did “exactly what they were trained to do: they accepted an assignment from their supervisors and carried it out professionally and apolitically.”
The FBI declined to comment. Separately, Patel testified before a House committee Thursday, brushed aside Democratic concerns that dismissing counterintelligence agents with expertise in Iran could weaken national security, and said there are “36,000 people employed at this FBI” and he rejected the notion that only those fired can carry out the mission.