FBI agents sue Kash Patel after being fired for kneeling at Floyd protest
Lawsuit filed by 12 former agents claims they were fired for actions during 2020 protests that were aimed at de-escalation but perceived as anti-Trump.
Twelve former agents with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination by the administration of US President Donald Trump for the act of taking a knee during racial justice protests in Washington DC, in 2020.
The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court on Monday, states that the agents were fired as part of a politicised “campaign of retribution” by the Trump administration over perceived sympathy for the protests, prompted by the police killing of George Floyd.
The agents have said that they kneeled during the protests in order to de-escalate a tense situation and that it was not meant as an act of political support. The controversy over their termination has brought further attention to the Trump administration’s efforts to enact retribution against perceived political enemies.
In recent months, federal prosecutors who worked on investigations into Trump have been fired, along with a federal worker who had an LGBTQ flag in his workplace.
The lawsuit states that Trump had attacked the agents, nine of whom are women, on social media before returning to the White House in 2024 and that FBI Director Kash Patel was intent on firing them, despite a previous review by FBI officials who concluded that the agents had kneeled to help ease tensions rather than as an act of support.
“Defendants targeted plaintiffs in particular because of plaintiffs’ use of deescalation with civilians that defendants perceived as opposed to, or otherwise not affiliated with, President Trump,” the lawsuit states.
It states that the agents had encountered a hostile crowd and that by kneeling, they may have avoided a “deadly confrontation” that “could have rivalled the Boston Massacre in 1770”, a reference to the shooting of protesters by British forces in Boston before the American Revolution. In a photo of the incident, however, agents appear relaxed, with little indication of serious risk.
Their termination letters accused the 12 employees of “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality” and the “weaponisation” of the FBI.
