Three fired FBI agents who worked on an investigation related to President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to get their jobs back, according to court filings reported by the Associated Press. The agents—Michelle Ball, Jamie Garman and Blaire Toleman—asked a judge in Washington to allow the case to proceed as a class action and to declare that their rights were violated. They said their removals amounted to punishment for participating in the Trump-related investigation and that they were not given a meaningful chance to respond.
The lawsuit, technically filed on behalf of just three agents, comes amid what the plaintiffs describe as a mounting series of court challenges tied to a personnel purge ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel over the last year. The agents said the removals reflected a “retribution campaign” aimed at them for their work connected to the Trump investigation, an allegation they framed as involving political interference in federal law enforcement.
The complaint says Ball, Garman and Toleman were fired last October and November. The filing describes each of them as having between roughly eight and 14 years of “exemplary and unblemished” service in the FBI before being removed. The agents said they were dismissed abruptly and without cause and that they were denied due process, according to the lawsuit account as reported by AP.
In a statement, the plaintiffs wrote, “Serving the American people as FBI agents was the highest honor of our lives,” adding that they “took an oath to uphold the Constitution, followed the facts wherever they led, and never compromised our integrity.” They also said their removal from federal service “without due process and based on a false perception of political bias” was “a profound injustice” that “raises serious concerns about political interference in federal law enforcement,” as quoted in the AP report.
The investigation the agents worked on culminated in 2023 in a criminal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Smith later dropped that case after Trump returned to the White House in 2024, citing Justice Department legal opinions that prohibit federal indictments of sitting presidents, AP reported. The lawsuit said the firings followed the release of documents about the investigation known as “Arctic Frost,” documents that Sen. Chuck Grassley said had come from within the FBI.
According to AP, the documents Grassley released included materials showing that Smith’s team had subpoenaed several days of phone records of some Republican lawmakers, an investigative step that angered Trump allies inside Congress. The lawsuit alleges that Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi orchestrated the agents’ firings while being “personally embroiled” in legal troubles connected to Trump, including Patel’s 2022 subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s retention of classified documents and Bondi’s role in Trump’s first impeachment trial, which ended in an acquittal.
AP reported that spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on the pending litigation. The report also said Patel and Bondi have said the fired agents and prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team were responsible for weaponizing federal law enforcement, a characterization the plaintiffs describe in the suit as defamatory and baseless.
The lawsuit seeks reinstatement and a court declaration affirming that the agents’ rights were violated. It also seeks to represent agents and employees fired since Jan. 20, 2025, or who may be fired in the future if the class is certified, AP reported. The suit’s goal, as described by the agents’ lawyer, was laid out in a statement by attorney Dan Eisenberg, who said, “This lawsuit seeks to reaffirm fundamental constitutional protections for FBI employees, ensuring they can perform their duties without fear or favor.”
Eisenberg, AP reported, said that loyalty should be directed to “facts and the truth.” He added that “We all benefit when law enforcement officers’ only loyalty is to facts and the truth,” according to the same statement. The complaint’s focus on constitutional protections comes as other FBI-related firings have also been challenged in court by employees with different circumstances, including agents described by AP as having been photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in 2020 and an agent trainee who displayed an LGBTQ+ flag at a workspace.
AP also reported that the firings have continued, including Patel pushing out a group of agents in the Washington field office who had been involved in investigating Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents. The report said Trump has insisted he was entitled to keep the documents when he left the White House and has claimed without evidence that he had declassified them.