FBI agents fired over 2020 protest actions sue for reinstatement

A dozen former FBI agents, fired in September by Director Kash Patel over their decision to kneel during a confrontation with protestors demonstrating against police brutality more than five years ago, sued for their reinstatement this week, arguing that they have been unfairly targeted as political enemies for what was purely a “tactical” decision.

In June 2020, the Trump administration ordered federal law enforcement to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., as nationwide protests sprung up in response to the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. But while some agencies provided officers with crowd control equipment and training, the FBI special agents in question were equipped solely with vests and their firearms.

While on patrol, the agents encountered an angry crowd of protestors and elected to kneel in what they said was an effort to de-escalate the confrontation. In the following months, FBI and Justice Department officials reviewed the incident and found no wrongdoing on the part of the agents involved.

But earlier this year, once confirmed by the Senate, Patel reopened the investigation into the FBI agents, demoting several of them and then firing them due to “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government.” Ordinarily, summary dismissal from the FBI requires more egregious misconduct, like possession of child sex abuse material or the theft of drug evidence for personal use.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, those former agents said their First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the president, Patel and others misconstrued their effort to avoid bloodshed as an act of political speech. In actuality, they said, it was a purely “tactical” decision borne out of the first Trump administration’s poor management of their deployment.

“Plaintiffs demonstrated tactical intelligence in choosing between deadly force—the only force available to them as a practical matter, given their lack of adequate crowd control equipment—and a less-than-lethal response that would save lives and keep order,” the lawsuit states. “The special agents selected the option that prevented casualties while maintaining their law enforcement mission. Each plaintiff kneeled for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a volatile situation, not as an expressive political act.”

By contrast, the plaintiffs argued that Patel’s defense of FBI agents in a similar scenario, albeit with a more GOP-aligned crowd in the form of those who assaulted the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

“On September 27, 2025—the day after summarily firing plaintiffs—Defendant Patel made a post on social media that underscores the political nature of his terminations of plaintiffs,” the suit states. “Discussing the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Defendant Patel said that FBI agents were ‘thrown into crowd control on Jan 6 against FBI standards’ and blamed the ‘failure’ on ‘corrupt leadership.’ FBI leadership was the same on June 4, 2020, as it was on January 6, 2021, yet Defendant Patel’s September 26, 2025, letter blames Plaintiffs, not their leadership, for the events of June 4, 2020.”

Monday's lawsuit comes just days after former federal workers in diversity, equity and inclusion positions or who otherwise worked for an agency's office of civil rights filed a class-action suit challenging their termination earlier this year.

Most FBI employees are excluded from coverage under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act but have similar protections against prohibited personnel practices. Two of the 12 fired FBI agents are veterans, granting them additional CSRA protections; their appeals before the Merit Systems Protection Board remain pending.