The Trump administration launched a "campaign of retribution" against senior Federal Bureau of Investigation officials who refused to demonstrate loyalty to President Trump, firing them last month for improper political reasons before they could collect early retirement benefits, according to a new lawsuit from three senior FBI agents.
The lawsuit describes leaders inside the FBI and Justice Department as both partisan and inept—struggling to please the White House and willing to dismiss anyone who crossed President Trump. At his Senate confirmation hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel promised to protect employees from improper political removal. But once he arrived at the Bureau's headquarters, the lawsuit alleges, Patel deliberately chose to follow directives from the White House rather than federal law.
"His decision to do so degraded the country's national security by firing three of the FBI's most experienced operational leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime," the lawsuit said.
The three plaintiffs are among the most senior and lauded FBI agents to have worked at the Bureau in recent memory. Brian Driscoll won awards for bravery and valor and led hostage rescue teams before briefly serving as acting FBI director this year. Steven Jensen ran the Washington Field Office and managed some 2,000 employees working on national security and violent crime. Spencer Evans oversaw high-profile investigations including a Tesla cybertruck bombing outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas this year, according to the lawsuit.
The men allege their dismissals violated their Fifth Amendment right to due process and the First Amendment's guarantee to free association and free speech.
"They were willing to sacrifice those people who had done nothing all of their lives but to protect the American people, for no other reason, than to be some sort of emblem of revenge or retribution," Abbe Lowell, an attorney for the three fired FBI officials, told NPR. "Going after people to make a statement became more important than the core mission of the FBI itself."
The case marks the second time the Bureau has been sued by its own agents this year. All three men had served for two decades at the time of their dismissal. But they could not formally retire because they had not yet reached the age of 50.
The FBI declined to comment about the lawsuit.
White House asks for loyalty to Trump
For Driscoll, hints of trouble began even before the inauguration, the lawsuit alleges. Around mid-January, he received a phone call asking about his willingness to take a more senior role at the FBI. A young, controversial member of the White House transition team with minimal experience asked Driscoll, "When did you start supporting President Trump?," inquired about his voting record and solicited his thoughts about diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The lawsuit said Driscoll refused to respond to questions about his voting record and about Trump, since FBI employees are not supposed to share personal political views on the job.
Driscoll got word he would soon be tapped to serve as the Bureau's acting deputy director, the second in command. But on Inauguration Day, a White House report listing interim heads of agencies referred to Driscoll as the acting director. He had been promoted—by mistake. Emil Bove, then a DOJ official, later said it was a "clerical error" that the White House was "unwilling" to fix, the lawsuit said.
A week later, Bove, who was serving as acting Deputy Attorney General, pulled aside Driscoll and another senior FBI official after a security briefing. Bove told them he faced pressure from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to see "symmetrical action at the FBI as had been happening at DOJ," according to court papers.
To them, it meant widespread reassignments and terminations, just like the dismissal of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases and on the teams that probed Trump over mishandling of national security secrets and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump in the past has accused the Justice Department of unfairly targeting him and his supporters in politically motivated investigations, and sought to reshape the agency since he returned to the White House.
Bove later demanded a list of FBI workers who took part in the investigations of Jan. 6, 2021—the biggest probe in Justice Department history, which Trump unwound with mass clemencies on his first day in office this year. Driscoll refused, the lawsuit alleges, saying it would put national security at risk and violate federal civil service laws and rules.
The dispute reached the media and prompted some FBI agents to create whimsical memes lauding Driscoll for standing up for the workforce. The lawsuit said that groundswell of support infuriated Bove, who was portrayed in one video as the Batman villain Bane, while Driscoll was depicted as Batman. (Bove has since been promoted to a lifetime-tenured federal judge post at the appeals court based in Pennsylvania.)
Eventually, under pressure, Driscoll put together a list of 6,000 people that included employee identification numbers, not names, in order to protect the FBI workers from retaliation and threats.
Deputy director alleged to overly focus on social media
Like Driscoll, the Trump administration promoted former FBI agent Steven Jensen only weeks before it fired him. Jensen helped coordinate the Bureau's response to the siege on the Capitol more than four years ago. But he was elevated to lead the FBI's Washington Field Office under the agency's new leaders this year.
Jensen worked closely with new FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, a former right-wing podcaster and Secret Service agent. Among other duties, the lawsuit says Jensen regularly briefed Bongino on high-priority investigations into the pipe bombs placed near the Capitol on Jan. 6; the leak of the Supreme Court's draft decision overruling the right to abortion; and the discovery of cocaine in the White House during the Biden administration.
"During these briefings, Jensen became alarmed at Bongino's intense focus on increasing online engagement through his social media profiles in an effort to change his followers' perception of the FBI," the lawsuit said. "The emphasis that Bongino placed on creating content for his social media pages could risk outweighing more deliberate analyses of investigations."
The lawsuit also details Jensen's interactions with Patel, the FBI director, about disclosing the name of an FBI agent who worked on several politically sensitive cases. Jensen met with Patel to ask him not to publicly name the agent, for fear he would be subjected to online abuse and threats. The agent's wife had only days to live, amid a battle against stage IV cancer.
At the end of the meeting, court papers said, Patel handed Jensen a flashy challenge coin inscribed with the word "Director" at the top and "Ka$h Patel" at the bottom. Such coins are popular in the national security community as tokens of appreciation, but this one was much larger than usual. "Patel told Jensen that he wanted him to be one of the first recipients of his new challenge coin," the lawsuit said.
Not long after, Jensen and the agent whose wife fought cancer were both fired. Word came on August 8, in a single-page letter signed by Patel.
Copyright 2025 NPR
