9 former FBI agents sue, saying they were wrongly fired over Mar-a-Lago case

Nine former FBI agents sued the Justice Department on Thursday, alleging they were wrongly fired solely because of their work investigating President Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

Attorneys for the agents write that their “fate was sealed by virtue of simply having worked on an investigation into Trump’s wrongdoing,” noting Attorney General Todd Blanche has boasted of having “cleaned house” of anyone who worked on the criminal probes of the president.

The suit notes the timing of the firings, which were carried out over the course of two days as FBI Director Kash Patel was under significant scrutiny over videos that showed him partying in Italy with the U.S. men’s hockey team following their Winter Olympics win.

“Plaintiffs were unlawfully terminated not for any cause or any legitimate reason, but only to satisfy the President’s personal vendetta. The firings did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the FBI, and Plaintiffs were not given any notice, a hearing, or an opportunity to appeal. Instead, Patel claimed to rely solely upon ‘Article II’ to support the firings,” the lawsuit states.

Article II is the portion of the Constitution establishing the presidency, and the White House has fired numerous individuals citing only the president’s authority.

“An ‘Article II’ firing is an invention of the current Administration. Its invocation represents an attempt to convert all federal employees into political appointees and condition their continued employment on their (perceived) personal and political loyalty to President Trump. In reality, the ‘Article II’ rationale is nothing more than a pretext for firings—like those of the Plaintiffs—that are politically retributive and unlawful,” the attorneys write.

The suit was brought on behalf of Jennifer Bacon, Zach Feldman, Gilbert Granados, Catherine Herrera, Harrison Kaufman, Jeremy Linton, Erin Matanic, Danielle Ray and Rachel Vaccaro.

The suit notes that each of the agents was assigned to the case and had worked on other high-profile investigations, including the Boston Marathon bombing and the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler County, Pa.

After a search of his Florida estate, Trump was found to have more than 300 documents with classified markings on them.

He ultimately faced Espionage Act charges for unlawfully retaining the records as well as an obstruction of justice charge after prosecutors alleged Trump demanded the documents be moved around the property to hide them from authorities and his own attorney.

The suit makes other allegations about Patel, noting the U.S invaded Iran shortly after his Olympic visit.

“Patel’s conduct in Italy in the week leading up to the war suggests he was not a central part of any planning within the Executive Branch for the national security consequences of the conflict. This scandal proved politically perilous for Patel: he drew widespread criticism for his conduct, with numerous sources suggesting that his status with President Trump and position as Director of the FBI were in jeopardy as a result,” the suit states.

It goes on to say Patel apparently violated a gag order in place in the Mar-a-Lago case by giving information about the Mar-a-Lago investigation to Reuters about subpoenas made for phone records, and then fired each of the nine defendants.

“In the article, three unnamed FBI ‘sources’ linked the Plaintiffs’ terminations to the ‘revelations’ about the phone records subpoenas in the classified documents case,” the suit states.