Three former FBI special agents who worked criminal cases against President Donald Trump and were then ousted by the administration have filed a lawsuit over their "illegal" firings, citing as evidence comments that the No. 2 official at the Justice Department made at a conservative conference last week.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who formerly served as Trump's personal attorney, said last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that FBI Director Kash Patel had “cleaned house” and that there “isn’t a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.”
Former agents Michelle Ball, Jamie Garman and Blaire Toleman filed the lawsuit that seeks class-action status. It names Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi and argues the agents "faithfully served" the country but were targeted by a "retribution" campaign that was "timed to drive headlines and curry favor with political supporters."
The suit, one of at least three filed by FBI agents fired under Trump, argues that the administration has axed more than 50 FBI employees “without providing them any modicum of due process, and while disparaging their reputations and service in public statements around the time of the firings.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, while the FBI said it could not comment on pending litigation.
The suit mentions Patel's authorship of a 2022 children's book titled: "The Plot Against the King,” which the lawsuit says portrays Patel as "one of the President’s most devoted loyalists." The suit also called Bondi "one of the President’s most devoted loyalists," and notes her role in filing "baseless lawsuits to impede the peaceful transition of power" after Trump's 2020 election loss.
All three of the former FBI special agents previously worked on a federal public corruption squad in the FBI Washington Field Office that was folded last May. That unit had aided former special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Trump, which led to two separate criminal cases against him: one for his handling of classified documents, and another for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. Both cases were ultimately dismissed before Trump took office in early 2025, following his 2024 election win.
The three plaintiffs say their names only "entered the public consciousness" when a "senior government official falsely accused them on television or social media of being corrupt, biased, or unethical for doing the lawful work that they were assigned."
Ball's firing on Oct. 7, the suit alleges, was "timed to coincide with Defendant Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee." Garman, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney for five years before joining the FBI, was removed from federal service on Oct. 31. Toleman, who the lawsuit says "investigated and disrupted terrorist plots" during her nearly 14 years of service with the FBI, was fired, unfired, then re-fired in early November.
While he's not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, the agents also argued that Dan Bongino, former co-deputy FBI director, "regularly amplified disinformation and conspiracy theories about President Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen" during his time as a podcaster.
Two other former FBI special agents who say they played only minimal roles in the Trump investigation filed suit earlier this month, filing the litigation anonymously to avoid being subjected to "an immediate risk of doxing, SWATting, harassment, and physical harm."
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday, attorneys contented, involves similar issues and should be considered related to the anonymously filed case, which was assigned to U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb.
Three additional FBI employees — including former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll — sued over their firings in September.
Earlier this month, the government argued that Trump had the "constitutional prerogative to manage and remove his executive subordinates," and that Driscoll and his co-defendants "occupied high-level positions such that their official duties substantially implicated the government’s interest in ensuring that plaintiffs could effectively carry out the government’s choices in those roles."
In February, Bondi wrote a memo in which she ratified and affirmed Patel's decision to remove Driscoll and his co-defendants from their jobs.
