Fired FBI agents who worked on Trump 2020 election investigation sue Patel and Bondi for wrongful termination

The FBI fired two experienced agents because they worked on the investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a new lawsuit alleges.

The suit, filed in Washington, D.C., federal court on Thursday, alleges that the bureau pushed out two agents with three decades of combined experience because of their past work on the probe.

The lawsuit, which does not name the FBI agents, alleges the officers’ First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated. It seeks to get the agents reinstated.

“Between October 31, 2025, and November 4, 2025, FBI Director Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel summarily fired each Plaintiff,” the complaint reads. “No internal investigation, notice, or hearing preceded their firings. Nor were Plaintiffs presented with any evidence purportedly supporting their firings or given an opportunity to appeal.”

According to the complaint, neither agent had deep involvement in the Trump investigation, which was dubbed “Arctic Frost.”

One agent, informed of his termination on Halloween as he prepared to go trick-or-treating with his kids, had conducted “largely administrative” work on the investigation, such as downloading documents and uploading information to a shared online drive.

The other agent also played a “supporting role” to more senior officials, helping record interviews and secure transcriptions.

The second agent was working on a “high priority” governmental fraud investigation and had briefed Patel in early October because of “his deep knowledge of that case and superb communication skills,” according to the case, an unusually prestigious task for a line agent.

Patel reportedly told the agent he had done “good work” and to “keep going.”

The FBI declined to comment.

Despite the recent commendation, the agents were fired shortly after a Republican-led Senate committee released a trove of Arctic Frost-related documents in late October, one of which named the first agent.

The lawsuit points to statements from top Trump officials, including Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, as evidence they planned a politically motivated retaliation campaign against agents seen as opponents of President Trump.

“There are a lot of people in the FBI and also in the Department of Justice who despise Donald Trump, despise us,” Bondi told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in one comment flagged in the lawsuit.

“Right now, we’re going to root them out; we will find them, and they will no longer be employed,” she added in the March 2025 remarks.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of cases from agents who allege they were illegally fired without cause for partisan reasons.

A December suit alleges agents were axed because they kneeled with protesters during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, a gesture the agents said was solely meant to diffuse a volatile situation.

In September, a group of three agents said they’d been let go as part of a “campaign of retribution” because they refused to comply with controversial demands such as firing disfavored agents and compiling lists of personnel who had worked on Trump-related investigations, the suit claims.

During testimony on Wednesday before Congress, Patel defended the personnel losses at the bureau.

“There’s 36,000 people employed at this FBI,” he told lawmakers. “And I reject the notion wholeheartedly that the termination of those that were weaponizing law enforcement are the only ones that can do the mission.”

Elsewhere in the hearing, he tangled with senators who asked him about reports that he fired agents with Iran expertise shortly before the war with the country began.

“They worked in counterintelligence, did they not?” Rep. Steve Cohen asked.

“I’m taking you at your word, sir,” Patel replied.

“You’re the director. I’m not,” the Tennessee Democrat fired back. “You should know the answer. You fired the people, where did they work?”

Outside of the FBI, a string of prosecutors with ties to past Trump investigations have been purged, and the administration sought to punish law firms that worked with critics of the president in the past.

The administration has also pursued cases, thus far unsuccessful, against the president’s enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.