Three FBI agents who were terminated last October and November filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Washington, naming FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi as defendants and seeking reinstatement for themselves and potentially dozens of other agents removed since the start of the Trump administration.
The plaintiffs, Michelle Ball, Jamie Garman and Blaire Toleman, allege in their complaint that they were fired as part of what they call a "retribution campaign" targeting them for their work on an investigation into President Donald Trump. The Associated Press reported that the three agents had between eight and 14 years of service at the bureau, which the lawsuit describes as "exemplary and unblemished." Their complaint alleges they were "abruptly fired without cause and without being given a chance to respond."
No charges have been filed against any of the agents. No court has ruled on the merits. This is a civil complaint at the earliest procedural stage, and the claims in it are allegations, not findings.
The AP reported that the investigation the three agents participated in culminated in a 2023 indictment from special counsel Jack Smith accusing Trump of illegally scheming to undo the 2020 election results. Smith ultimately abandoned that case, along with a separate case accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after Trump won back the White House in 2024. Smith cited Justice Department legal opinions that prohibit the federal indictment of a sitting president.
Those cases collapsed on their own terms. Smith walked away. The legal opinions he cited did not emerge under political pressure; they are longstanding DOJ policy. The agents now suing were foot soldiers in an investigation that produced charges their own side chose not to pursue. That context matters when evaluating whether their terminations constitute "retribution" or an accountability reckoning inside an agency that spent years chasing cases it could not finish.
The lawsuit notes that the firings followed the release by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of documents about the election investigation known as Arctic Frost. Grassley said the documents came from within the FBI. Those records included files showing that Smith's team had subpoenaed several days of phone records of some Republican lawmakers, an investigative step that drew sharp reactions from Trump allies in Congress.
Subpoenaing the phone records of sitting members of Congress is an extraordinary step. When that fact became public through Grassley's disclosures, it provided concrete evidence of the scope of Smith's investigation and the degree to which it reached into the political branches of government. Whether those subpoenas were legally justified or represented prosecutorial overreach is a question that hangs over this entire dispute.
The complaint accuses Patel and Bondi of having orchestrated the firings despite being "personally embroiled" as witnesses or attorneys in legal matters Trump faced. According to the AP, Patel was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and had his phone records subpoenaed. Bondi was part of the legal team that represented Trump at his first impeachment trial, which resulted in his acquittal.
The lawsuit frames these prior involvements as disqualifying conflicts of interest. In one passage, the complaint states:
And now, by virtue of presidential appointment to the pinnacle of federal law enforcement, Defendants are abusing their positions to claim victories that eluded them on the merits.
That is a serious allegation, but it is also an unproven legal argument in a complaint that has not been tested by a single round of adversarial briefing. Patel and Bondi have said the fired agents and prosecutors who worked on Smith's team were responsible for weaponizing federal law enforcement. That position was also asserted in the agents' termination letters, according to the AP. The plaintiffs call the claim "defamatory and baseless."
Spokespeople for both the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on the litigation.
The three agents issued a joint statement. In it, they said:
Serving the American people as FBI agents was the highest honor of our lives.
They continued: "We took an oath to uphold the Constitution, followed the facts wherever they led and never compromised our integrity." They also described their removal as occurring "without due process and based on a false perception of political bias," calling it "a profound injustice that raises serious concerns about political interference in federal law enforcement."
Dan Eisenberg, a lawyer for the agents, said his clients were fired without any investigation, notice of charges or chance to be heard. Eisenberg stated:
This lawsuit seeks to reaffirm fundamental constitutional protections for FBI employees, ensuring they can perform their duties without fear or favor.
The lawsuit was technically filed on behalf of the three named agents but seeks class action status, meaning certification by a court that it can represent a broader group with similar claims. The AP reported that the suit seeks to represent a class of at least 50 agents who have been terminated since Jan. 20, 2025, or who will be. If class certification is granted and the plaintiffs ultimately prevail, all of those agents could recover their positions.
The AP also reported that other fired employees have filed their own suits, including agents who were photographed kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest, an agent trainee who displayed an LGBTQ+ flag at his workspace, and a group of senior officials, including the former acting FBI director, who were terminated last summer. Patel last month pushed out another group of agents in the Washington field office who had been involved in investigating Trump's retention of classified documents.
No hearing date, no assigned judge, and no docket number have been publicly identified for this new case. The court has not ruled on class certification, and the defendants have not yet responded.
The legal question at the center of this case is straightforward even if the politics around it are not: does a new administration have the authority to remove FBI agents whose prior investigative work it considers an abuse of power, or does due process require something more than a termination letter? The answer will shape whether the FBI functions as a permanent institution insulated from presidential oversight or as an agency ultimately answerable to the elected executive. For Americans who watched federal law enforcement spend years pursuing cases it later abandoned, the question of who was really accountable, and to whom, is long overdue.
