By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has agreed to refrain from publicly identifying any FBI agents whose conduct is under review as President Donald Trump’s administration examines the investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, according to a court filing Friday.
Attorneys for FBI employees filed two lawsuits Tuesday to halt the collection and potential dissemination of agents’ names. Many within the FBI feared the Justice Department would use a list of names to conduct mass firings.
Attorneys for FBI agents who fear for their safety if their identities are released asked U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb to issue an order temporarily barring the federal government from publicly identifying them. A hearing on that request started Thursday and was scheduled to resume Friday, but government lawyers asked the judge to cancel it and sign off on their agreement instead.
In Friday’s court filing, the Justice Department said the government will not release the list of agents to the public, either “directly or indirectly,” before the judge rules on the merits of the lawsuits.
Thousands of FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases were asked to complete in-depth questionnaires. In response to the request, the FBI provided Justice Department officials with personnel details about several thousand employees.
The bureau initially identified agents by employee number rather than by name. But Friday’s court filing says the FBI subsequently turned over a record that pairs the numbers with corresponding names.
Attorneys for the Justice Department and FBI agents spent several hours inside and outside Cobb’s courtroom on Thursday, but they were unable to reach an agreement before the end of the day.
The Justice Department set a deadline Tuesday for the FBI to provide a list of all current and former FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 criminal investigations so officials could determine if they should be disciplined. Those FBI agents are likely to be threatened and harassed if their identities are publicly exposed, their lawyers argued.
Attorneys for FBI agents said it would cause them irreparable harm if their names are released. They noted the names of individual employees from other federal agencies already have spread on social media, making them targets of online harassment.
“The risk to these agents is horrendous,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Norman Eisen.
In a court filing, government attorneys argued that the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order “is based entirely on speculation.”
“Plaintiffs can point to nothing that suggests the Government intends to make public the list in this case,” they wrote. “To the contrary, the Department and FBI management have repeatedly stressed the purpose of the list is to conduct an internal review, not expose dedicated special agents to public insult or ridicule.”
In a memo Wednesday, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” while investigating the Capitol attack face no risk of being fired. But the memo also provided no reassurances for any agents found to have “acted with corrupt or partisan intent.”
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