FBI fires agents photographed kneeling during 2020 US racial justice protests

WASHINGTON: The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the

anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press. The number of FBI employees terminated was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

The photographs at issue showed a group of agents in a taking a knee during one of the demonstrations following the May 2020 killing of Floyd, a death that led to a national reckoning over policing and racial injustice and sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the arrest. The kneeling had angered some in the FBI but was also understood as a possible de-escalation tactic during a period of The FBI Agents Association confirmed in a statement late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful. It called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel’s disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees.

“As Director Patel has repeatedly stated, nobody is above the law,” the agents association said. “But rather than providing these agents with fair treatment and due process, Patel chose to again violate the law by ignoring these agents’ constitutional and legal rights instead of following theA lawsuit filed by Jensen, Driscoll and another fired FBI supervisor, Spencer Evans, alleged that Patel communicated that he understood that it was “likely illegal” to fire agents based on cases they worked but was powerless to stop it because the White House and the Justice Department were determined to remove all agents who investigated Trump.

Patel denied at a congressional hearing last week taking orders from the White House on whom to fire and said anyone who has been fired failed to meet the FBI’s standards.