Two former FBI agents have filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, alleging they were fired solely for their work on an investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The two former special agents, identified only as “John Doe 1” and “John Doe 2” in the complaint, say they were assigned to an investigation “into a suspected conspiracy to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election,” known as “Arctic Frost,” the 41-page complaint filed on Thursday stated.
The complaint stated the plaintiffs were assigned by their superiors to Arctic Frost and the investigation was “one of many investigations to which Plaintiffs were assigned” during their time with the FBI.
The investigation would eventually be turned over to the office of special counsel Jack Smith, which led to a grand jury indictment of Donald Trump in 2023, the complaint stated. Following Trump’s presidential election win in 2024, the Justice Department moved to dismiss the indictment based on its own policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.
The two plaintiffs were fired from the agency in late October and early November 2025, following the public release of “unredacted documents associated with Arctic Frost” by Republican members of Congress, which included the name of one of the plaintiffs, the complaint stated.
The legislators, in releasing the documents, “declared Arctic Frost agents to be partisan operatives,” the complaint stated. The suit argues the agent’s termination was “based solely on their assignment to Arctic Frost.”
“No internal investigation, notice, or hearing preceded their firings. Nor were Plaintiffs presented with any evidence purportedly supporting their firings or given an opportunity to appeal,” the complaint noted.
The complaint goes on to argue that Bondi, Trump and “others who urged the agents’ firings perceived the agents to be politically opposed to President Trump because of the agents’ assignment to Arctic Frost.”
The plaintiffs are seeking relief in the form of a declaration from the court that the firing violated their First and Fifth amendment rights, reinstatement to their previous positions at the FBI, and a court order barring the defendants from taking any “further adverse personnel action against them,” without providing due process.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit outside of normal business hours.