A dozen former FBI agents—yes, the same “highly trained counterintelligence and counterterrorism Special Agents” photographed kneeling at a Black Lives Matter protest—are now suing the FBI and the Trump administration to get their badges back.
That infamous June 4, 2020 moment on Pennsylvania Avenue—agents in full FBI gear dropping to one knee as demonstrators marched past—still sends shockwaves through the Bureau. The scene unfolded in the wake of George Floyd’s death on May 25, when Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin sparked nationwide outrage. Yet these agents now insist their kneeling wasn’t political. It was tactical genius.
According to the lawsuit, the protest that day “included hostile individuals alongside families with young children” and even echoed “another critical moment from our nation’s Founding: the Boston Massacre.” The agents claim they had no protective gear, no non-lethal tools, and had to improvise like it was some kind of colonial-era standoff. Their answer? Kneel.
They insist it worked. As the lawsuit states, they “made a considered tactical decision focused on saving American lives and maintaining order … As a result of their tactical decision to kneel, the mass of people moved on without escalating to violence. Plaintiffs did not need to discharge their firearms that day. Plaintiffs saved American lives.”
Critics, however, argue the only thing they protected was a trending hashtag.
When President Trump returned to office in January, pressure reportedly mounted inside the West Wing. The complaint claims Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller advocated for “summary firings.” And once Kash Patel became Director on Feb. 21, the Bureau allegedly began reassigning several of the kneeling agents, all women, from top posts.
By September 26, the hammer dropped. The group was fired for “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government.” This, the plaintiffs say, happened while an internal review was still underway—proof, they argue, that the terminations were “unlawfully” ordered by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Director Patel and violated both the First and Fifth Amendments.
The kicker? These former agents are now portraying themselves as whistleblowers punished for trying to keep the peace.
Here’s a reminder of the act in 2020.
