Lawsuit alleges firings followed hockey celebration and lacked due process

Nine former FBI employees filed suit against the FBI, its director Kash Patel, and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleging their terminations over work on the classified documents investigation into President Donald Trump were “unlawful.”

The plaintiffs — Jennifer Bacon, Zach Feldman, Gilbert Granados, Catherine Herrera, Harrison Kaufman, Jeremy Linton, Erin Matanic, Danielle Ray, and Rachel Vaccaro — collectively have “over a century of experience and service to the FBI,” according to the filing. The group had been “involved in numerous high-profile investigations to thwart threats and respond to crises and attacks against the United States,” the lawsuit said.

Among those investigations were the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024.

The plaintiffs’ work on the documents case helped lead to Trump being charged in June 2023 for allegedly lying and trying to mislead federal investigators to keep sensitive materials he knew were classified after leaving office in January 2021 at the end of his first term. Trump was later charged with trying to obstruct the investigation and pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The case was ultimately dismissed after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been appointed improperly. The Justice Department dropped its appeal of Cannon’s ruling after Trump was re-elected in November 2024.

The lawsuit alleges the nine were dismissed without cause and that “the terminations appeared to be politically motivated,” coming while Patel was being criticized for partying with the U.S. men’s hockey team during the Winter Olympics.

According to the filing, FBI Special Agent Miles Starr — who was part of the “Director’s Advisory Team” that was apparently tasked with investigating Trump’s perceived political foes — demanded urgent access to the case file on Feb. 23.

Starr’s request came after Patel was filmed chugging beer and “flinging alcohol around the U.S. men’s hockey team’s locker room at the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy,” with the footage “began circulating widely on social media and news sites,” the lawsuit said.

The case file contained the names of the agents who worked on the probe, and the plaintiffs say they were fired over the following days “without any of the required due process.”

The filing says “Each Plaintiff was provided with a termination letter signed by Director Patel” that, according to the lawsuit, falsely claimed the employees had exercised “poor judgment and a lack of impartiality in carrying out their duties, leading to the political weaponization of the government.”

Patel has told Congress the employees were terminated for cause and after internal investigations — claims the plaintiffs say are not true.

The plaintiffs are seeking reinstatement to their FBI posts and back pay.