By Diana Novak Jones
March 19 (Reuters) – Two former FBI special agents sued agency director Kash Patel in federal court on Thursday, claiming they were fired because of their work on the investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The agents, who filed their lawsuit in Washington D.C. federal court anonymously, said Kash fired them last fall after Trump and his supporters pushed for their removal over their work on the investigation. Kash, who said agents who worked on the election case were “corrupt actors” who “weaponized law enforcement,” terminated them without a hearing or investigation, the lawsuit claims.
The agents said they were assigned to work on the investigation, which led to Trump’s indictment in 2023 on charges he led a conspiracy to block the certification of his election defeat to former President Joe Biden. The U.S. Department of Justice dropped the case in 2024 after Trump’s reelection.
The lawsuit asks the court to reinstate the agents to their positions and find that the firings violated their rights under the U.S. Constitution to free speech and due process.
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment.
The agents suing said they were assigned to work in the Washington field office and had been lauded for their performance during their years of service.
They were each assigned to the investigation into an alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election through the use of fake electors, a probe the FBI called “Arctic Frost.” The work was not part of their normal assignments and neither agent played a major role, they said in the lawsuit.
Throughout Trump’s reelection campaign in 2024 and after his election, he and his supporters vowed to seek out government employees who they said were politically opposed to Trump, with a special focus on the FBI.
Trump has called the agents who worked on Arctic Frost “total Scum” and “Radical Left Lunatics” in social media posts, according to the lawsuit.
Both agents were fired between late October and early November 2025, according to the lawsuit. Each was given a termination letter, and neither was told their termination was based on poor performance or misconduct, the lawsuit said.
Neither agent has been able to secure new employment, in part because the language in their termination letters bars them from further employment with the Executive Branch, the lawsuit said. But they have also been repeatedly rejected from employment with other organizations, based in part on a fear that their hiring could harm relationships with the Trump administration, the lawsuit said.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Stephen Coates)
