FILE PHOTO: An FBI logo is pictured on an agent's shirt in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. October 19, 2021. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI acting director Brian Driscoll and two other former senior officials who were fired without cause last month sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, alleging they were dismissed in a "campaign of retribution" that targeted officials viewed as insufficiently loyal.

The lawsuit alleges that FBI Director Kash Patel said he had been ordered to fire anyone who had worked on a criminal investigation against President Donald Trump, and that his own job depended on their removal.

“The FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it," Patel told Driscoll, according to the lawsuit.

Steve Jensen, the former assistant director of the Washington field office, and Spencer Evans, the former top official in the Las Vegas field office, are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The FBI declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Driscoll, who temporarily served as the bureau's director early this year, sought to shield FBI employees who had been investigating people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn Trump's election defeat.

More than two dozen FBI employees have been forced out or fired since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, in a wide-ranging campaign of retribution that has also targeted federal prosecutors, national security officials and others who worked on investigations or criminal cases against him.

The FBI Agents Association said in a statement that most special agents are not permitted by law to appeal personnel actions to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the lawsuit underscores the need for Congress to extend those protections to all bureau employees.

Driscoll alleges that while he was being vetted ahead of Trump's January 2025 inauguration, he was asked by a White House transition staffer, Paul Ingrassia, about "when did you start supporting President Trump" and whether he had voted for Democratic candidates in the last five elections. He said he refused to answer those questions.

Ingrassia has since been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel, the government office that enforces laws preventing federal employees from engaging in partisan activities while on the job.

Driscoll says he was told later that evening by Emil Bove, a former Trump defense attorney who was due to take a top position in the Justice Department, that he had "failed" the vetting interview and that Ingrassia had reported that he was not "based out" enough - a term he understood to mean loyalty to Trump's political ideology.

Nevertheless, Bove said he would vouch for Driscoll to temporarily serve as the agency's No. 2 official until political appointees could be confirmed by the Senate, with another senior FBI official, Robert Kissane, to serve as acting director.

But when Driscoll showed up at FBI headquarters on January 20, the day of Trump's inauguration, he was handed a document that listed him as acting director.

According to the lawsuit, Bove told him the mixup was a clerical error but that the White House did not want to fix it.

PRESSURE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

After taking the job, Driscoll alleges that Bove told the two men he was under pressure from Stephen Miller, a senior White House official, to see "symmetrical action at the FBI as had been happening at DOJ," in a reference to the firings of officials who had been involved in Trump-related cases.

Bove shortly after asked for the names of FBI employees who worked in the Washington, Miami and Las Vegas offices, as well as those who worked on the January 6 investigations, which Driscoll resisted. Bove later accused Driscoll of insubordination.

When Driscoll and Kissane told Bove that employees were feeling anxiety from the pressure campaign, Bove said that "was the intent."

Bove has since left the Justice Department and now serves as a U.S. appeals court judge.

Driscoll, who is known internally by some at the FBI as "Drizz," is widely seen by rank and file agents as a hero who pushed back against efforts by the Justice Department to target people who worked on January 6 investigations. A number of memes celebrating his leadership, including one video depicting him as Batman, while Bove was depicted as the villain Bane.

The lawsuit alleges that these parody videos rankled Bove, who told Driscoll he did not like how he was being portrayed.

"Driscoll responded that he did not make the video, nor could he control unknown individuals’ feelings or expressions of said feelings," the lawsuit said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Andy Sullivan, David Gregorio, Alistair Bell and Marguerita Choy)