The FBI on Tuesday released the names of some 5,000 employees who worked on cases related to the deadly January 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol.
The Context
The release comes amid the Department of Justice (DOJ) examining those from its ranks who worked on January 6 cases, including firing roughly 30 prosecutors last week who worked on the team of special counsel Jack Smith.
The DOJ also over the weekend sent questionnaires to thousands of FBI personnel, asking them to detail the level of their involvement in investigations related to the 2021 Capitol attack.
Newsweek previously reached out to the White House and DOJ about whether the Trump administration plans to fire all FBI personnel who worked on the January 6 probe.
What To Know
The FBI consists of around 38,000 employees, according to the bureau's website, meaning more than 13 percent of its workforce was involved in cases tied to the Capitol siege. There is no evidence that any FBI personnel engaged in political bias or misconduct while working on the investigation, which was the largest in Justice Department history.
Two groups of FBI agents filed lawsuits on Tuesday against the Justice Department and the acting attorney general, accusing them of unlawfully trying to purge the bureau of officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.
"Upon returning to the Presidency, Mr. Trump has ordered the DOJ to conduct a review and purge of FBI personnel involved in these investigations and prosecutions," said one class-action lawsuit, filed by nine anonymous bureau agents. "This directive is unlawful and retaliatory," violating a federal law protecting government employees from unfair treatment, it added.
The complaint said that in addition to grilling FBI personnel about their involvement with January 6 cases, the questionnaires distributed last week asked them to identify if they played a "specific role" in Smith's investigation of Trump hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida after he left office in 2021.
The plaintiffs have reason to believe the information they provide will "be used to target them for retaliatory discharge due to the Trump administration's perception of their loyalties," the suit said.
The lawsuit also claims that Trump has "made repeated public pronouncements of his intent to exact revenge upon persons he perceives to be disloyal to him by simply executing their duties in investigating acts incited by him and persons loyal to him."
Shortly after that suit was filed, a second group of anonymous FBI employees sued the Justice Department, accusing it of carrying out "the mass, unlawful termination of Bureau employees" involved in the Capitol riot investigation.
What People Are Saying
The FBI Agents Association urged Congress to protect the jobs of FBI personnel who could be fired, saying in part that the organization has "urgent concerns about recent actions taken by acting officials at the Department of Justice that threaten the careers of thousands of FBI Special Agents and risk disrupting the Bureau's essential work."
What Happens Next
The Associated Press reported that although the FBI turned over details of the approximately 5,000 employees involved in the January 6 investigation, it identified them only through their unique identifier code.
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