A federal judge has recently put the kibosh on lawsuits from two groups of FBI agents who were trying to stop the Justice Department from disclosing the identities of employees involved in January 6 cases and various Trump investigations. In a ruling that seems more aligned with the Trump administration than the plaintiffs, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, appointed by President Biden, dismissed the cases.
Back in February, these agents—presumably hoping for a cloak of anonymity—filed their lawsuit to shield their names from being accessed by the Justice Department. However, CNN reported that the FBI had already handed over a list of 5,000 employees who participated in the January 6 events and related investigations.
According to NBC News, although there were over 2,400 cases in total, a staggering 5,000 officials were involved. The identification of these officials was facilitated through a case management system, which assigned a “unique employee identifier” to each agent rather than using their names.
As NBC reporter Ken Dilanian pointed out, while the Justice Department can easily match these identifiers to the names on payroll, the FBI’s decision to withhold names means that, for now, there won’t be a public master list of those who were involved in January 6.
A person directly familiar with a matter tells NBC News the FBI has turned over to the Justice Department—as ordered—a list of thousands of agents and other personnel involved in January 6 cases.
But the person says the list does not include names. The agents were identified by…— Ken Dilanian (@DilanianMSNBC) February 4, 2025
FBI agents are reportedly anxious about the potential repercussions of being named. They fear that their identities could lead to demotions, job loss, or missed promotions down the line. In their class action lawsuit, they argued, “Plaintiffs legitimately fear that the information being compiled will be accessed by persons who are not authorized to have access to it. Even if they are not targeted for termination, they may face other retaliatory acts such as demotion or denial of job opportunities.”
Reuters further detailed that Judge Cobb found the agents’ concerns about the potential disclosure of their names to be “too speculative” to warrant legal action. In her ruling, Cobb asserted, “They do not plausibly allege that Defendants are about to engage in any of the conduct agents are worried about,” effectively granting the Trump administration’s request to dismiss the lawsuits.
