在卡什·帕特尔被确认担任联邦调查局局长之前，他向参议员保证，他对针对过去曾处理他不赞成案件的特工发动运动没有兴趣。
Before Kash Patel was confirmed as director of the FBI, he assured senators that he had no interest in waging a campaign against agents who worked on cases he disapproved of in the past.
“我没有兴趣，也没有意愿，如果被确认，我不会倒退，”他作证说。“联邦调查局不会出现政治化。如果我被确认为联邦调查局局长，联邦调查局不会采取任何报复性行动。”帕特尔接手局长职务后，很快就明显看出，这位前播客人物并不是他所说的那样。相反，帕特尔任期的一个显著特点是，对联邦调查局人员进行了不必要的激进清洗，尤其是那些曾参与特朗普白宫反对的调查的人员。
“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” he testified. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI, should I be confirmed as the FBI director.”After Patel took the reins at the bureau, it quickly became clear that the former podcast personality didn’t exactly mean what he said. On the contrary, one of the defining features of Patel’s tenure has been the needlessly aggressive purge of FBI personnel, especially those who worked on investigations opposed by the Trump White House.
一个特别引人注目的例子出现在二月，当时联邦调查局解雇了一群曾参与调查唐纳德·特朗普处理机密文件失当事件的特工和支援人员。当时，联邦调查局特工协会在一份声明中表示，这些解雇是“非法的”，并侵犯了“那些冒着生命危险保护我们国家的人的正当程序权利”。显然，被清洗的人得出了同样的结论。
One especially striking example emerged in February, when the FBI fired a group of agents and support staff who worked on the investigation into Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. At the time, the FBI Agents Association said in a statement that the terminations were “unlawful” and violated “the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.”Evidently, those who were purged came to the same conclusion.
周四，九名前联邦调查局员工对帕特尔和司法部长托德·布兰奇提起诉讼，质疑他们解雇的合法性。他们的律师在一份声明中部分写道：作为回报，他们因履行职责而被解雇，他们一贯如此，以无偏见、无偏袒的方式遵循事实和法律。对这届政府来说，这是一种冒犯。对我们其他人来说，这是英雄行为。
On Thursday, nine former FBI employees filed a lawsuit against Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche, challenging the legality of their dismissals. A statement from their attorneys read in part: In return for their service, they were fired because they did their jobs, as they always did to follow the facts and law without bias or favor. To this administration, this is an offense. To the rest of us, it is heroic.
此诉讼将证明他们的非法解雇，并让政府为这一公然攻击法治的行为承担责任。
This lawsuit will prove their unlawful dismissal and hold the administration accountable for this blatant attack on the rule of law.
该诉讼本身还主张，解雇特工和支持人员“未遵循联邦调查局内部的任何调查或纪律程序”。虽然政府官员尚未对此诉讼发表评论，但结合背景来看，值得注意的是，这些情况有多么熟悉。五年前因在种族正义抗议活动中单膝下跪而被解雇的十几名联邦调查局特工于2025年也起诉了帕特尔和联邦调查局，正如一名曾接受特工培训的资深联邦调查局雇员所做的那样，他去年因在工作区展示LGBTQ+旗帜而被解雇，尽管同一面旗帜之前曾在一个野外办公室外升起。
The litigation itself also asserted that the firing of the agents and support staff “did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the FBI.”While administration officials have not yet commented on the litigation, it’s worth noting for context how familiar the circumstances are. A dozen FBI agents who were fired in 2025 for taking a knee during racial justice protests five years earlier have also sued Patel and the bureau, as has a veteran FBI employee, who was training to become a special agent, who was fired last year for displaying an LGBTQ+ flag at his workspace, despite the fact that the same flag had previously flown outside a field office.
正如MS NOW几个月前报道的那样，三名前联邦调查局特工随后代表该局所有最近被解雇的特工起诉特朗普政府，称机构领导出于政治原因对他们进行了报复。
Months later, as MS NOW reported, three former FBI agents also sued the Trump administration on behalf of all of the bureau’s recently fired agents, alleging that agency leaders retaliated against them for political reasons.
该报道补充道：“提起诉讼的前特工——杰米·加曼、布莱尔·托尔曼和米歇尔·博尔——曾都在前特别顾问杰克·史密斯对前总统唐纳德·特朗普试图推翻2020年大选结果的调查中工作。”
“The ex-agents who brought the suit — Jamie Garman, Blaire Toleman and Michelle Ball — all worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election,” the report added.
去年夏天，帕特尔及其团队还解雇了三名经验丰富的局领导，其中包括曾获基层特工广泛尊重的前代理局长布赖恩·迪斯科尔，他在帮助阻止对数千名参与1月6日案件调查的联邦调查局官员进行大规模解雇之后被撤职。他们提起诉讼，挑战自己的解雇决定。这些案件目前均仍在进行中。请继续关注。
Last summer, Patel and his team also ousted three experienced bureau leaders, including former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, a widely respected figure among rank-and-file agents, who was removed after he helped prevent a mass firing of thousands of FBI officials who worked on Jan. 6 cases. They filed suit, challenging their firings. Each of these cases is ongoing. Watch this space.