Depoliticizing the FBI by Firing the People Who Investigated the President

Rachel Vaccaro says she received two awards signed by FBI Director Kash Patel in 2025, an "Exemplary" performance rating that November, and a firing the following February. Her assigned work had included investigating Donald Trump's retention of classified documents. Apparently the bureau's performance review needed one more field: did the subject win the election?

Vaccaro is one of nine former employees who sued on October 15 in federal court in Washington. Bacon v. Patel names Patel, Attorney General Todd Blanche, the FBI and Justice Department. The plaintiffs include special agents, intelligence analysts and staff operations specialists. According to their complaint, eight were fired on February 25, 2026; agent Danielle Ray was fired February 26. They seek reinstatement, back pay and declarations that their constitutional rights were violated. These are allegations, not judicial findings.

The employees say they did not volunteer for the classified-documents investigation, known as Plasmic Echo. Their counterintelligence and intelligence squads were assigned to it. They allege that Patel signed termination letters accusing them of poor judgment and political weaponization, invoking Article II authority, without an internal investigation, advance notice or a hearing. The government allegedly managed to identify political bias without troubling the accused with an opportunity to explain their work.

Patel's actual defense is stronger than simply saying he can fire anybody. In March, he told Congress that career FBI personnel conducted internal investigations identifying unethical or inappropriate conduct before he decided on terminations. He declined to specify violations, citing pending litigation. In September, he expressly denied firing people merely for working on Trump investigations: "So, the simple fact of working on those investigations, no. If they weaponize law enforcement, yes." Genuine misconduct warrants discipline, regardless of an employee's awards or case assignments.

That makes the investigation records rather important. The plaintiffs deny that those investigations happened. They also say their personnel forms did not record for-cause firings. Vaccaro's favorable reviews would not, by themselves, disprove later misconduct. But neither does repeatedly saying "weaponization" establish it. A bureau that asks courts to distinguish evidence from suspicion should be able to make that distinction when the investigation concerns the president.

The alleged cost extends beyond nine paychecks. Supervisory Special Agent Jeremy Linton says he was managing several dozen Iran-related counterintelligence investigations and could not transfer his cases, impending operations or intelligence before being removed. Other plaintiffs describe similarly missing handoffs. Those are allegations of disrupted work, not proof of a specific resulting attack. The public still deserves an explanation of how the work was covered.

An FBI director can demand impartiality. The employees are asking a court to examine whether that demand was applied to conduct or to the name on a case file. If the assignment itself was the offense, Washington has found an efficient way to prevent political investigations: make investigating the president a career-ending political act.

Depoliticizing the FBI by Firing the People Who Investigated the President

Sources