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FBI agents are suing the Trump administration to prevent it from publicly naming staff involved in an investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021 amid an intensifying crackdown against the president’s perceived enemies.
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, nine anonymous FBI agents and employees accused the Department of Justice of an effort to “review and purge” those involved in investigations into the storming of the US Capitol and a separate case involving the mishandling of classified information at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
They allege that a justice department attempt to identify those involved in the probes was “unlawful and retaliatory” and that publicly naming them risked putting them and their families in “immediate danger of retribution”.
“Plaintiffs . . . seek immediate relief to enjoin the aggregation, storage, reporting, publication or dissemination of any list or compilation of information that would identify FBI agents and other personnel, and tie them directly to Jan 6 and Mar-a-Lago case activities,” wrote lawyers Pamela Keith and Scott Lempert of the Center for Employment Justice.
The case marks the most serious legal effort to resist Trump’s drive to take revenge against the “deep state” elements and government employees he views as having wronged him.
Retribution was a crucial element of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. He vowed in November that “those involved in unscrupulous behaviour will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our country”.
The lawsuit relates to two federal investigations: one probing the storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters and another that looked into his alleged storing of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
The latter was the first federal prosecution of a US president, but was ultimately dismissed. Trump pardoned about 1,500 people involved in the January 6 riots on his return to office, describing their prosecution as “a grave national injustice”.
Tuesday’s lawsuit was filed in a Washington, DC district court hours ahead of a deadline, set by acting deputy attorney-general Emil Bove, for the FBI to provide a list of employees involved in investigating the events of January 6.
It alleges that FBI staff were asked to fill out a survey in the past few days identifying their specific role in the Capitol and Mar-a-Lago probes. The plaintiffs believe the survey was designed to “identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action”.
“Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan 6 convicted felons,” Keith and Lempert wrote in the lawsuit.
The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI said it was “standard practice to decline to comment on litigation”.
Keith, representing the FBI employees, told the Financial Times that the group were “apolitical” and “dedicated” civil servants.
“It is simply inconceivable to us that they would risk their employment by simply executing their duties, which is the scenario that is being set up by the White House,” she said.
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