A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration from making public a list of FBI officials who were involved in cases tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The Justice Department agreed to that in two cases brought by FBI employees, who expressed concerns the government would release the identities of officials involved. They argue releasing the list would be blatant retaliation from the Trump administration and would endanger the safety of FBI employees and their families.
The order from Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia prevents the Trump administration from sharing the list with the public before the court decides whether to issue a preliminary injunction in the case after a hearing set for March 27.
The government would have to give the FBI employees and the judge a notice of two business days if the Trump administration wanted to release the list, according to the order.
The two lawsuits were filed after FBI officials were ordered to fill out a survey asking about their role in the Jan. 6 investigations and prosecutions, including the last activity they took related to those cases.
Attorneys for the FBI employees argued that the release of the names would cause irreparable damage, and that there have been examples in which Trump allies have identified federal employees. That includes an executive order from the White House that singled out former intelligence officials who signed a letter in 2020 regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The Justice Department argued the employees were relying on speculation the FBI list might be leaked outside the government to people wishing them ill will but failed “to plead any specific facts to support that allegation.”
One lawsuit was brought by a group of FBI employees and the FBI Agents Association, while the other was brought by a group of nine FBI employees. The latter suit, which was filed by the Center for Employment Justice, said the purpose of the survey was to identify FBI employees to be fired “as a form of politically motivated retribution.”
The government, in a filing, pushed back on that point, saying FBI employees do not “plausibly plead” that they would be fired.
The deal came one day after a lengthy hearing in federal court, in which government attorneys and attorneys for the FBI officials tried to hash out a deal.
Cobb, in court, had asked attorneys what evidence they had that the Justice Department was planning to release the list.
Pamela Keith, with the Center for Employment Justice, argued that officials would likely not announce ahead of time if the information was going to be leaked. That dynamic would prevent FBI officials from going to court to stop the release.
Plus, the threat to national security is “so extreme” that they could not risk “letting it happen first and then trying to put it back together,” Keith said.
President Donald Trump, at a press conference Friday, said he would fire some of the FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 investigations “because some of them were corrupt.”
“We had some corrupt agents, and those people are gone or they will be gone. And it’ll be done quickly and very surgically,” he said.
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