Washington DC - Nine FBI employees who were fired this year – who had all worked on the criminal probe of President Donald Trump's handling of classified documents – filed suit Thursday demanding their reinstatement.

The group of agents and analysts – who were all abruptly dismissed in February by FBI director Kash Patel, a close ally of Trump – argue in their lawsuit that the firings were acts of "political retribution" for working on the documents case.

"Plaintiffs were unlawfully terminated not for any cause or any legitimate reason, but only to satisfy the President's personal vendetta," the FBI employees argue in their suit, filed in federal court in the US capital.

In 2022, federal agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, discovering dozens of boxes the politician took from the White House after leaving office in 2021.

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Trump was ultimately charged with criminally retaining classified documents. However, the case was dropped by a federal judge he appointed in his first term just a few months ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Trump was also facing federal criminal charges related to alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which were dropped after he won a second term.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump's administration has fired dozens of FBI and other law enforcement personnel associated with the investigations, which the president has consistently decried as "political witch hunts."

At the same time, the FBI under Patel has launched probes and sought criminal charges against several of the president's perceived political opponents.