A Biden-appointed judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday brought by FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 investigations.
Agents’ concerns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would retaliate and publicly disclose a list of those who worked on Jan. 6 cases are “too speculative,” Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, wrote in her 32-page opinion finding the agents lack standing to sue.
“They do not plausibly allege that Defendants are about to engage in any of the conduct agents are worried about,” she wrote.
Agents sued early in February after leadership instructed them to complete a survey about their work on Jan. 6 investigations, fearing the release of their information to the public would place them at risk. While Cobb said she “understands why Plaintiffs want certain assurances from the government,” she wrote that there is nothing in the complaint or the record that supports their argument.
“There is nothing in Plaintiffs’ amended complaint or the record before the Court—taken separately or considered together—from which the Court can reasonably conclude that Defendants have any plan to release Plaintiffs’ identities to the public,” she wrote.
The judge also dismissed First Amendment claims about “hypothetical, future terminations and unspecified ‘adverse actions’ that may never occur.”
“Plaintiffs argue in their briefs that Defendants’ ongoing internal review of FBI agents is itself an adverse action that violates the First Amendment,” she wrote. “But those allegations are conspicuously absent from the amended complaint—the document in which Plaintiffs must make the contours of their claims clear.”
Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represented the agents, wrote on X that the “reality is we won.”
“I have little doubt that had we not intervened back in Feb names of all J6 FBI personnel were going to be released,” Zaid wrote. “We stopped that cold. Five months later circumstances are different. But if threat arises again, we will sue.”
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