Over two days in late February 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel fired about a dozen agents, analysts and support staff, “most of whom worked on Smith's probe into President Trump's retention of classified documents,” CBS News reported; CNN, citing four people briefed on the matter, put it at “at least 10.” According to multiple sources who spoke to CBS, “The firings began after FBI Director Kash Patel alleged that former special counsel Jack Smith had subpoenaed his phone records.” Patel's statement: “It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records, along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.” CBS noted that he “did not describe the 'flimsy pretexts.'”
The records were toll records, which, CBS explained, “contain details such as the originating and recipient numbers, date, time, and duration of calls, but not the content,” and “It is customary for law enforcement to obtain such records through a grand jury subpoena as part of a criminal investigation.” The FBI Agents Association said, “The FBIAA condemns today's unlawful termination of FBI Special Agents, which, like other firings by Director Patel, violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country.”
On March 31, 2026, three former agents, Michelle Ball, Jamie Garman and Blaire Toleman, sued Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi in a case seeking class-action status. They were not part of the February firings: the Associated Press reports they “were fired last October and November,” and NBC News reports Ball was fired on October 7, Garman on October 31 and Toleman in early November 2025. All three had worked on the FBI Washington Field Office's public corruption squad, which aided Smith's investigations and was folded in May 2025. The suit alleges a “retribution” campaign “timed to drive headlines and curry favor with political supporters,” and says the administration has fired more than 50 FBI employees “without providing them any modicum of due process, and while disparaging their reputations and service in public statements around the time of the firings.” In a statement the three said, “Our removal from federal service, without due process and based on a false perception of political bias, is a profound injustice that raises serious concerns about political interference in federal law enforcement.” As evidence, the suit cites then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's remark at CPAC that Patel had “cleaned house” and that there “isn't a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.” The FBI said it could not comment on pending litigation.
In September 2026 ProPublica reported that Ball, before her firing, had taken the confession of a defense contractor describing his dealings with more than a dozen members of Congress, and that the resulting bribery investigation died after the squad was dismantled (see A Collins Donor Handed the FBI a Road Map to Bribery in Congress. The Probe Died After Patel Purged the Corruption Squad.).
Correction (September 22, 2026): this entry previously said Patel fired “dozens” of agents in February; the reporting says about a dozen. It also read as though the three plaintiffs were among those February firings; they were fired in October and November 2025. It quoted the agents' termination letters and statements with language (“exercised poor judgment and a lack of impartiality,” “political weaponization of the government,” “fully adhered to FBI and DOJ policies,” “without bias or political motive”) that could not be found in any available source, and described First and Fifth Amendment claims that could not be confirmed; those have been removed. Three of its source links no longer resolved and have been replaced.