FBI gives Justice details on employees who worked Jan. 6 cases, FBI agents sue
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The FBI on Tuesday handed over a list to the Justice Department of bureau employees who worked on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigation — but did not include the individuals' names because of security concerns, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Instead of names, the FBI provided what's known as a unique employee identifiers — in essence an employee ID number, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters.
The bureau also submitted each individuals' current title, their title at the time of the relevant investigation, their role in it, the date of the activity and their current office. Information on around 4,000 FBI employees was turned over to the department, the person said.
FBI leadership submitted the information in response to a memo from the Trump Justice Department last week, directing the bureau to identify all current and former FBI personnel who worked on Jan. 6 cases or the prosecution of Hamas leaders last year.
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The information is part of an effort to remake the FBI and Department of Justice to serve President Donald Trump's agenda and push out those deemed disloyal. Trump faced off against the Justice Department in a pair of criminal cases over the past couple of years — until those prosecutions were dropped after he won the election.
In the same memo, with the subject line "Terminations," acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firing of eight senior FBI officials, leading to panic at the FBI of a possible purge of thousands of agents in retaliation for their work on Capitol riot cases.
Since then, FBI employees were instructed to fill out a survey that would detail their specific role in the investigations.
Lawsuits follow
FBI agents filed two separate lawsuits in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the Justice Department, seeking to block it from making public any list of FBI employees or their personal information.
One of the lawsuits was filed by the FBI Agents Association and anonymous agents, which counts the vast majority of the bureau's roughly 15,000 agents as members. The other suit was filed anonymously by a group of nine FBI agents.
Both of the complaints cite concerns about potential retaliation by Jan. 6 defendants against FBI employees who investigated them. Trump pardoned some 1,500 Capitol riot defendants, including individuals convicted of assaulting police.
"Plaintiffs assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action," one of the lawsuits states. "Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons."
The lawsuit filed by the FBI Agents Association includes what it says are examples of Jan. 6 defendants who received pardons publicly posting on social media about the FBI officials who investigated them.
In one of them, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison before being pardoned by Trump, has "openly expressed his intent to seek retaliation against the FBI," the lawsuit says.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
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