Nine former FBI employees who worked the Trump classified documents case have sued Director Kash Patel, claiming unlawful firings they frame as political payback rather than accountability.
NBC News reported that the group filed suit against Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleging the terminations were “unlawful” and tied directly to their roles on the investigation code-named “Plasmic Echo.”
The plaintiffs are Jennifer Bacon, Zach Feldman, Gilbert Granados, Catherine Herrera, Harrison Kaufman, Jeremy Linton, Erin Matanic, Danielle Ray, and Rachel Vaccaro. They want reinstatement and back pay. The Justice Department and FBI were asked for comment; none appears on the record in the initial coverage.
Their lawyers cast the removals as punishment for following the facts. Bureau leadership has described personnel moves as a needed break from years of politicized cases that collapsed in court.
The complaint says FBI Special Agent Miles Starr, working on a “Director’s Advisory Team,” demanded urgent access to the Plasmic Echo file on Feb. 23. That file held the names of agents who had worked the probe. Over the next few days, the suit says, those named employees were fired without the due process the bureau normally requires.
Each plaintiff received a termination letter signed by Patel. The letters, as the suit describes them, said the employees had shown “poor judgment and a lack of impartiality in carrying out their duties, leading to the political weaponization of the government.” The plaintiffs call that characterization false.
The filing insists the nine “did not volunteer to participate in Plasmic Echo; they were assigned to the case because they were members of specific FBI Counterintelligence and Intelligence squads” and “performed their duties apolitically.” It also claims the group carries “over a century of experience and service to the FBI,” including work on the Boston Marathon bombing and the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"Before and after Plaintiffs’ firings, President Trump, Defendant Patel, Defendant Blanche, and others in Trump’s orbit publicly impugned Plaintiffs’ integrity, despite their unimpeachable service records; smeared their work as politically motivated, when it was not; and made clear that their fate was sealed by virtue of simply having worked on an investigation into Trump’s wrongdoing."
That language comes from the complaint itself. It is the plaintiffs’ theory of the case, not an adjudicated finding.
Attorneys Margaret Donovan, Abbe D. Lowell, and Rebecca S. Tinio issued a joint statement saying the suit would prove their clients were unlawfully fired and would hold the administration accountable for what they labeled “this blatant attack on the rule of law.”
"because they did their jobs, as they always did, to follow the facts and law without bias or favor. To this administration, this is an offense. To the rest of us, it is heroic."
Those are the lawyers’ words. Readers can weigh them against the record of the underlying case.
The Washington Examiner likewise reported that the nine former employees allege “unlawful and hasty” firings pursued as “political retribution,” naming Patel and Blanche among the defendants.
Patel later told Congress the employees were fired for cause after internal investigations. The suit says those claims are not true. That conflict is unresolved. No court has ruled on the merits.
In June 2023, then-former President Trump was charged over allegations he retained classified materials after leaving the White House and misled investigators. He pleaded not guilty. He was later charged with trying to obstruct the investigation and again pleaded not guilty.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case after finding that special counsel Jack Smith had been appointed improperly. After Trump won re-election in 2024, the Justice Department dropped its appeal of that ruling. The prosecution ended without a trial on the merits.
That history matters. The same institutional machinery that built Plasmic Echo saw its legal foundation rejected. Personnel who staffed those efforts now want a court to treat their removals as unlawful retaliation. Declassified material on the Mar-a-Lago search has already fueled broader debate about how that investigation was opened and run.
The suit also asserts that “as a result of their unlawful and hasty firings, Plaintiffs’ investigations were not properly transferred to other FBI Special Agents or Analysts” and that “the impacts of these heedless actions on America’s national security is immeasurable.” Those are advocacy claims inside a civil complaint. They have not been tested in court.
This is not the only wrongful-termination suit aimed at the new leadership. Earlier this year, two former FBI special agents filed a similar action over roles in the “Arctic Frost” election-related probe. The Justice Department moved to dismiss that case; it remains pending.
Fox News reported that those two agents say they were fired in late October or early November without investigation, notice, or hearing, allegedly because of brief administrative work on Arctic Frost despite strong performance reviews. Their complaint argues the removals violated FBI for-cause policy and constitutional protections, and seeks reinstatement.
In that coverage, Patel rejected the idea that only the people who ran contested political cases can keep the bureau functioning: “There’s 36,000 people employed at this FBI... I reject the notion wholeheartedly that the termination of those that were weaponizing law enforcement are the only ones that can do the mission.”
Leadership turnover has continued on other fronts as well, including Andrew Bailey’s exit from the co-deputy role after a short stretch as a possible successor figure inside the reformed hierarchy.
The plaintiffs say they were assigned, not volunteers, and that their work was clean. The termination letters, as quoted in the suit, said the opposite: poor judgment, lack of impartiality, and a contribution to the political weaponization of government. Patel’s congressional account puts the firings after internal review. The complaint denies that sequence.
None of that is settled. What is settled is the fate of the classified documents prosecution itself. A federal judge threw out Smith’s appointment. The appeal died after the 2024 election. Voters then returned Trump to office. The new FBI director has treated the prior era’s high-profile political cases as a problem to correct, not a record to protect.
Internal moves have not been limited to the documents team. Separate reporting has covered counterterrorism chiefs sidelined after internal clashes and other Trump-era personnel shifts that track the same reform agenda.
Abbe Lowell and his co-counsel want a courtroom win that restores their clients and brands the firings as lawless. The administration’s position, reflected in Patel’s public defense of removals aimed at weaponization, is that the FBI does not owe lifetime tenure to agents who staffed cases the courts would not sustain.
Miles Starr’s name also surfaces in the complaint in connection with the first indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a case that was ultimately dismissed. Comey’s team called that matter politically motivated. Pattern arguments cut in more than one direction.
Further leadership churn has included Bailey’s departure after a year of bureau reforms under Patel, another marker of how thoroughly the front office is being reshaped.
Related litigation keeps stacking up across the intelligence and law-enforcement world, including fights in which judges have tossed speculative suits aimed at Trump-era accountability measures. Courts will sort the claims. The public already sorted the politics.
Career agents deserve fair process. Taxpayers also deserve an FBI that does not treat failed political prosecutions as sacred work. These nine can have their day in court. They do not get to freeze the bureau in the posture that produced Plasmic Echo.
