Sept. 10 (UPI) — Three former FBI officials accuse FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi of “politicizing” the FBI by firing those involved in investigating President Donald Trump.
Former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll Jr., former Assistant Director in Charge Steven Jensen and former special agent Spencer Evans name Patel, Bondi, the FBI, the Justice Department, the Executive Office of the President and the federal government as defendants in a federal lawsuit.
They filed a wrongful termination lawsuit on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The three former FBI officials in the lawsuit say they “served this country with distinction and courage as special agents and senior officials” at the FBI.
Their six decades of combined experience at the FBI included preventing terrorist attacks, rescuing American hostages, saving children from predators and disabling violent street gangs, they say.
“Each day of their service was dedicated to protecting the American people and to fulfilling the oath they took when they joined the FBI,” Driscoll, et al., say.
That oath was to “‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States’ and to ‘bear true faith and allegiance to the same,'” they argue.
Patel fired the three plaintiffs on Aug. 8 and notified them via a single-page letter to each “in violation of federal law and the United States Constitution,” the plaintiffs claim.
“Patel not only acted unlawfully but deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people,” Driscoll, et al., say.
“His decision to do so degraded the country’s national security by firing three of the FBI’s most experienced operations leaders, each of them experts in preventing terrorism and reducing violent crime.”
Patel allegedly “admitted that his superiors … had directed him to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against President Donald J. Trump,” Driscoll, et al., argue.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.
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