FBI Director Kash Patel illegally fired top FBI executives on orders from the Trump administration as part of a campaign to turn the nation’s premiere law enforcement agency into a political arm of the White House, a federal lawsuit filed Sept. 10 alleges.

Former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll Jr. and two other ousted FBI senior officials filed the 68-page lawsuit against Patel and the FBI, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department, and the Trump administration. Driscoll, Steven Jensen and Spencer Evans allege in the suit that they were targets of politically motivated retribution and had their constitutional and legal rights violated.

Once he took over at the FBI, they allege, “Patel’s actions stood in stark contrast to his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. There, he assured the Committee and the country that ‘all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.’”

The FBI, Justice Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from USA TODAY.

“This is not a selfish endeavor,” Driscoll, who was fired for refusing to help gather names of FBI personnel involved in investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Trump-fueled attack on the U.S. Capitol, said in a news release accompanying the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.

“For me, it's just about doing what I think is right,” Driscoll said. “That said, I hope this effort results in protecting others who did no harm and committed no misconduct from wrongful consequences.”

The FBI has been “completely politicized by individuals whose interests are contrary to the pursuit of law and order and the protection of our country's national security,” Mark Zaid, one of the lawyers on the case, told USA TODAY. “This lawsuit demonstrates how the current administration has sought to destroy the FBI, retaliate against those perceived to have committed individual wrongs against the president, and especially to create chaos to ensure their imagined 'Deep State' enemies do not rise up against them.”

In their lawsuit, the three former officials provide pages of detail about incidents and conversations that they say show their abrupt terminations in August 2025 were unconstitutional, retaliatory and part of a broader pattern of vengeance-based, political retribution within the Bureau.

Patel, for instance, admitted in a conversation with Driscoll that his superiors at the Justice Department and White House instructed him to fire anyone who they identified as having worked on “the cases against President Trump… regardless of their retirement eligibility status.”

“He then stated that Driscoll needed to understand that ‘the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,’” the suit says in describing Driscoll’s account of a conversation with Patel.The lawsuit also alleged that Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general, not only demanded a list of all FBI personnel associated with Jan. 6 investigations, but said terminations would be based on a subjective assessment of loyalty to Trump’s agenda.

When Driscoll challenged this as unlawful, the lawsuit says, Bove – now a Trump-appointed federal judge for life − said the DOJ was receiving pressure from White House.

Dan Bongino, the former conservative FBI’s deputy Director of the FBI, pressured Jensen – then an assistant FBI director who oversaw its Washington field office, to fire a veteran agent based simply on unfounded allegations about his work on a case against a former Trump associate. \

.Jensen refused, the lawsuit said, warning Bongino that such an unlawful firing would violate FBI policy and veteran protections.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ousted FBI leaders file lawsuit against Director Kash Patel, Trump administration

Reporting by Josh Meyer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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