Three senior FBI officials who were abruptly fired last month by Kash Patel, the FBI director, are claiming in a new lawsuit against the Trump administration that they were illegally terminated at the direction of the White House for purely political reasons.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, alleges Patel told one of the agents that his job as FBI director depended on firing agents involved in past investigations of President Trump.
Patel allegedly said “he had to fire the people his superiors told him to fire, because his ability to keep his own job depended on the removal of the agents who worked on cases involving the President,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Patel explained that there was nothing [anyone] could do to stop these or any other firings, because ‘the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,'” the complaint claims. According to the complaint, Driscoll indicated he believed Patel was referring to his superiors at the White House and the Justice Department which “Patel did not deny.”
The three fired agents who brought the case were decorated veterans of the agency who had served in senior roles. One of them, Brian Driscoll, had briefly been acting FBI director while Patel was going through the Senate confirmation process. Steven Jensen served as assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office. Spencer Evans had once led the Las Vegas field office, but by the time he was fired he had been removed from that position and was being relocated to the Huntsville, Alabama, office.
The three agents, as well as two others who are not part of the lawsuit, were abruptly fired in an early August leadership purge without public comment and little explanation. None of them had reached retirement age, depriving them of their full pensions.
The firings were the latest in a broad FBI makeover that began almost immediately after the transition, as the new administration sought to dominate an agency Mr. Trump claimed had been targeted against him.
Patel defended the moves against the senior agents in an interview with Larry Kudlow on the Fox Business Network, saying the firings were aimed at “ridding this place of its former leadership structure that did that weaponization.”
CBS News has asked the FBI for any response to the lawsuit.
The Justice Department has not responded to a request for comment.
The agents who filed the lawsuit declined comment on the case. Abbe David Lowell, who is representing them, said the Trump administration’s termination of them was illegal.
“As the complaint makes clear, the leadership of the FBI is carrying out political orders to punish law enforcement agents for doing their jobs – it’s illegal and it’s putting the national security of our country at risk,” he said. The three agents filed the case to try to vindicate their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit specifically alleges that the FBI was pressured by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who wanted “to see personnel action, like reassignment, removals and terminations at the FBI, similar to the firings and reassignments of senior attorneys at DOJ that had occurred since January 20, 2025.”
One focus of the purge involved FBI employees who were part of the Jan. 6 investigations, according to the complaint. The suit alleges that Emil Bove, who at the time was a senior top Justice Department official, told Driscoll about “pressure he was receiving from (Stephen) Miller to conduct summary firings of agents.”
Mr. Trump later appointed Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Driscoll said that when he raised concerns these actions would rattle rank-and-file agents, Bove’s response took him by surprise.
“Bove stated that the creation of panic and anxiety in the workforce ‘was the intent,'” the lawsuit alleges.
Driscoll’s firing, in particular, surprised many inside the FBI because he appeared to be in good standing with Patel. A highly decorated agent who took part in numerous daring counterterrorism operations, Patel had indicated he admired him as a swashbuckling tactical operator, CBS News previously reported.
During his short stint as acting director, Driscoll resisted calls from a top Trump appointee at the Justice Department to turn over the names of FBI employees who participated in the Jan. 6 investigation, earning him near folk-hero status among line agents.
Patel nevertheless kept him on after he was confirmed as FBI director, putting him in charge of the most important and sensitive positions in the bureau.
But his trajectory at the FBI in the wake of Trump’s election reflected the chaos and partisan politics that typified the presidential transition.
According to the lawsuit, Trump transition team members reached out to Driscoll about assuming a senior leadership role in an acting capacity. He soon learned it was to be acting deputy FBI director. After agreeing to be vetted for the position, according to the complaint, Driscoll was questioned by a 29-year-old transition aide who asked him a series of questions that seemed to seek information about his political loyalties.
Among the questions recounted by Driscoll in the lawsuit: “Who did you vote for?” “Do you agree that the FBI agents who stormed Mar-a-Lago, to include the rank-and-file, should be held accountable?” “What are your thoughts on DEI?” And, “Have you voted for a Democrat in the last five elections?”
Driscoll defended the actions of the agents in the Mar-a-Lago search “for doing their job” and said he “strongly believes in diversity and a diverse workforce.” He refused to answer the other questions, according to the lawsuit.
Jensen also appeared to have Patel’s backing before he was fired. A veteran agent who helped oversee the January 6 investigation from his position as chief of the FBI’s domestic terrorism section, Jensen was given a significant promotion by Patel, who appointed him assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, which the complaint identifies as one of the largest field offices in the country.
The promotion had inflamed a noisy portion of Trump’s MAGA base because of his supervisory role in the Jan. 6 case. They torched him and the decision on social media, but Patel continued to praise Jensen in meetings and even presented him with a director’s “challenge coin,” a token of appreciation that leaders in the military and law enforcement often bestow on their subordinates.
Scott MacFarlane
contributed to this report.
