FBI Agents File Suit Over Trump’s Jan. 6 Witch Hunt
A group of FBI agents fearing retaliation from the president have filed a lawsuit to block the Justice Department from compiling and disseminating a list of agents who worked on cases investigating Donald Trump.
News of the suit, filed Tuesday, coincided with reports that the FBI had, in fact, compiled such a list and handed it over to the Justice Department.
The class-action complaint comes from agents involved in cases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Since his return to office, Trump’s administration has seemed poised to purge the FBI of agents who previously worked against him.
Last week, the agency fired more than half-dozen top agents in executive positions, including the chiefs of its Miami and Washington, D.C. field offices.
News broke on Monday that the Justice Department had distributed a required questionnaire that asked agents about their role in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that the FBI turned over a list of 5,000 agents who worked on investigations related to Jan. 6. The information shared reportedly included the agents’ employee ID numbers, job titles, and role in the investigation—but not their names.
The new lawsuit says that the agents who worked on those cases fear termination or other discipline as a form of retribution. It also says they worry for their safety if the list of their names becomes public.

“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,” the suit reads.
According to the suit, the number of agents who worked on the cases could total 6,000 out of the bureau’s more than 13,000 agents.
The complaint says that compiling a list of the agents violates the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the federal Privacy Act, and it asks the D.C. district court to prevent the Justice Department from doing so. It names Trump’s acting attorney general, James McHenry, as its defendant.
Neither the Justice Department nor the plaintiffs’ lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment from the Daily Beast.
On Sunday, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of its New York office, James Dennehy, told staff that they were in the midst of a “battle” as the Trump administration’s witch hunt commenced.
“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy,” he wrote in an email, according to The New York Times.
“Time for me to dig in,” he added, assuring the agents that he would continue to provide assistance.

Trump, who has often criticized the FBI since leaving office, has denied responsibility for the personnel changes underway at the FBI.
“I wasn’t involved in that,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “I’ll have to see what is exactly going on after this is finished.”
The agency raided Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club, in 2022 over allegations that he was mishandling classified government documents.
Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial pick to lead the FBI—whose Senate confirmation still hangs in the balance—said under oath last week that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.”