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The Kash Patel Impeachment Referral Inside the Employment Lawsuit
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Remember how I argued (here and here) that a motion to intervene in the stolen documents case was deliberately coy about how many FBI personnel some lawyers, including Margaret Donovan and Abbe Lowell, were representing?The filing was submitted on behalf of “multiple current and former Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) agents and analysts” who worked on the stolen documents case. The filing is quite coy about how many FBI personnel are implicated in this filing, probably to elicit a response that will cover a far greater universe of people. In one place, a footnote using the word “many” refers via this article to this one about Kash Patel firing at least ten people who played a role in the Mar-a-Lago search in February.
[snip]
It could be two people; indeed later, the filing in several places uses the word “each” and describes just two functions in the investigation:
Indeed, one Client currently subpoenaed to appear for testimony reviewed the entirety of Volume II to confirm its factual accuracy. Another Client is the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affiant.
[snip]
But it is written such that it could apply more broadly.
I expected then that the filing might serve two purposes: To challenge the terms of compelled testimony in the Grand Conspiracy case proceeding under one of Aileen Cannon’s two hats, but also to force Cannon to adopt rules on testimony that would be consistent across all of government, including testimony before Congress or other official proceedings, like employment lawsuits.
Secret filings
The former purpose appears to be proceeding apace, in secret.
After Donovan and Lowell filed their motion to intervene, Judge Cannon issued a snotty order, claiming they had not conferred with the government on the filing. On October 7, Donovan and Lowell resubmitted their motion, along with a complete Certificate of Conference. And according to a successful DOJ request to delay an Eleventh Circuit hearing on liberating the Jack Smith report, Cannon ordered briefing for October 21 and 28.
On October 7, current and former Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) agents involved in the underlying criminal investigation that led to these proceedings filed a new motion to intervene in the District Court, seeking permission to both disclose and publicly discuss non-public information covered by the District Court’s February 23, 2026, Order prohibiting the release of Volume II. That motion raises significant issues overlapping with arguments made in these appeals, including those concerning the availability of intervention in criminal proceedings and Article III standing. Defendants-Appellees must now respond to that motion by October 21, with further briefing scheduled through October 28, just days before the currently scheduled November 2 oral argument.
Either Cannon has sealed the public docket, or DOJ just revealed secret information from a grand jury docket, violating grand jury secrecy.
But that motion for clarification is proceeding, in secret.
Nine FBI personnel
Keep that in mind as I unpack the lawsuit that nine FBI personnel, represented by (among others) Margaret Donovan and Abbe Lowell, filed against Kash Patel yesterday.
We know that at least one of these FBI personnel is common to both filings. The lawsuit describes that plaintiff Jeremy Linton was the affiant on the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago.
Following their review of the CCTV footage, certain Plaintiffs, together with DOJ attorneys, drafted a search warrant for which Plaintiff Linton served as the affiant.
Of just two specifically described clients, the motion to intervene describes that one was “the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affiant.” (Note, while the lawsuit provides delicious details describing who did what in the stolen documents investigation, it does not provide end dates for involvement in the stolen documents case for all plaintiffs, so one of the other plaintiffs may be the person who “reviewed the entirety of Volume II to confirm its factual accuracy,” which would have taken place long after the other people moved on in mid-2024.
Jeremy Linton has been subpoenaed for testimony in Florida. And he is suing Kash for firing him in DC.
An impeachment referral inside a lawsuit
On its face, this is an employment lawsuit, the kind of lawsuit Margaret Donovan has been filing in bulk during Trump 2.0. But in the middle there’s something else: A map to show how to prove that Kash lied to Congress about his reasons for firing the plaintiffs.
Here is the structure of the lawsuit (the linkable version is below):
This lawsuit, filed just weeks before an election where Democrats are expected to take at least the House, and while DOJ and these lawyers fight over the terms of Judge Cannon’s gag order, particularly as it pertains to Linton’s subpoena, has all the necessary parts for the employment lawsuit.
But along the way it provides a map of the stories plaintiffs might be able to tell about Trump’s theft of classified documents and Kash’s own role in the investigation. And it provides all the details Congress might need to substantiate proof that Kash lied about why he fired these plaintiffs.
The Kash subpoena
The lawsuit is not just an impeachment referral. It argues that Kash Patel violated Aileen Cannon’s gag order in order to create an excuse to fire the nine FBI agents.
As noted above, the complaint describes how Jeremy Linton subpoenaed Kash for testimony back in 2022 (before Jack Smith was appointed); it cites the unsealed grand jury filings that Congress has been too incompetent to find and rely on in hearings with the FBI Director. Then it describes a subpoena investigators issued for Kash’s communications obtained shortly thereafter, citing an article by Kash’s favorite mouthpiece, Jana Winter.
128. In September 2022, after Patel had publicly claimed personal knowledge that Trump had declassified the materials that he unlawfully retained at Mar-a-Lago, Plaintiffs Linton and Ray served Patel with a subpoena commanding him to testify before the grand jury. F 17 Patel moved to quash the subpoena, but the court denied his motion and ordered him to testify.F 18 When he eventually appeared to testify, Patel repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.F 19 DOJ then moved to compel Patel’s testimony. F 20 The court granted DOJ’s motion contingent on Patel receiving immunity for his testimony.F 21 After he was granted immunity, Patel returned to the grand jury and testified.F 22
129. Around the same time, the Special Counsel’s Office issued a grand jury subpoena for phone records associated with Patel—a fact that Patel later publicly disclosed to the media on or about February 25, 2026, as described below.F 23 Patel revealed that the subpoena had sought, among other things, call and text metadata, subscriber information, account identifiers, billing and IP addresses, and other billing information, but not the contents of any phone calls or text messages.F 24
17 See Op. at 3, In re Kashyap Patel, No. 25-mc-7 (JEB) (D.D.C. July 21, 2025), ECF 17.
18 Id.
19 Id.
20 Id.
21 Id.
22 Id.
23 Jana Winter, FBI Obtained Kash Patel and Susie Wiles Phone Records During Biden Administration, Reuters (Feb. 25, 2026), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-obtained-kash-patel-susie-wiles-phone-records-during-bidenadministration-2026-02-25/. [link added]
The next paragraph describes Kash’s “wild immaturity and lack of personal control” at the Olympics (which is worth a read; there is no shortage of contempt in that paragraph). Following that, the next paragraph returns to that subpoena.
But let’s put this in order. Let’s first look at the description of how Kash came to learn of that subpoena.
The day after Kash’s debauchery, plaintiff Jennifer Bacon got forwarded an email from the Kash flunky who violated Jim Comey’s attorney-client privilege, Miles Starr, asking for access to the stolen documents file, which request he needed to make because it was still being treated as a Sensitive Investigative Manner.
55. On the afternoon of Monday, February 23, 2026, the day after Patel’s locker room incident in Milan, Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky forwarded Bacon an email sent to him from Special Agent Miles Starr. At the time, Starr was detailed to an unofficial unit known as the “Director’s Advisory Team” (“DAT”) established by Patel, which is composed of individuals who report directly to FBI headquarters and appear to work on investigations into perceived political enemies of the President. For example, Starr provided grand jury testimony in the ill-fated first indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. F 65 His testimony was sharply criticized by a magistrate judge assigned to the case as being “highly irregular and a radical departure from past DOJ practice” involving potential attorney-client privilege issues.F 66
156. In sum and substance, Starr’s email communicated that he urgently needed to access the Plasmic Echo case files because he had to complete a project by the end of the day for Patel. Because Plasmic Echo was a SIM, FBI policy dictated that access be restricted solely to those individuals assigned to the case to protect the subject of a SIM investigation from unnecessary reputational harm while an investigation remains in “pending” status and to prevent the unauthorized disclosure, leaks, or spillage of sensitive information related to uncharged individuals. Thus, Starr did not have automatic access to the case. Starr did not explain what he needed, but stated that he was on instructions from Patel to access the case file. Bacon granted him access to all Plasmic Echo files in the FBI’s case management system, with the exception of one specific subfile.
157. The files Starr had access to contained the names of all nine Plaintiffs.
158. Thus, by the evening of February 23, 2026, Starr—who reported directly to Patel and who had been ordered by Patel to access the Plasmic Echo file—had access to each of Plaintiffs’ names and the roles of each member of the classified documents case team.
159. Less than 48 hours after granting Starr access, on the afternoon of February 25, 2026, Plaintiff Bacon was called out of a meeting and informed that she was being terminated.
65 Criminal Case Cover Sheet, United States v. Comey, No. 25-cr-272-MSN (E.D. Va. Sep. 25, 2025), ECF 7.
66 Mem. Op., Comey, No. 25-cr-272-MSN (E.D. Va. Nov. 17, 2025), ECF 191.
My favorite line of this entire lawsuit (and there are a lot of good ones!) is where it describes Bacon withholding “one specific subfile.” What’s in there? Fuck if I know. It might describe what the Jack Smith team knows about where the lost documents went to. It might be a subfile that explains why this lawsuit lumps Kash in along with defendant Trump. I don’t know. I hope Congress finds out!
Two days after Starr got that file, Kash’s favorite mouthpiece was reporting on a subpoena targeting Kash. And that subpoena — which Kash professed not to understand — was the excuse for firing these nine FBI personnel.
131. On February 25, 2026, in an apparent attempt to break the news cycle and get back into President Trump’s good graces, Patel disclosed to Reuters that his phone toll records (timestamps of phone calls and text messages, but not the content of any communications) and those of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (who at the time of the Plasmic Echo investigation was serving as an advisor to Trump) had been subpoenaed in connection with the Special Counsel’s investigations of Trump.F 28 Again demonstrating his personal hostility toward the Plasmic Echo investigation, Patel described the subpoenas as “outrageous” and asserted that they rested on “flimsy pretexts.” Patel conceded, however, that “he did not know the FBI’s purpose in seizing the phone records of him and Wiles.” Patel complained that the phone records had been placed in the FBI’s restricted files (“prohibited case files”) to evade oversight. But investigatory files in SIMs often have restricted access in order to better safeguard information and reduce the risk of media leaks related to sensitive targets. Patel’s statements regarding the subpoenas to a news outlet appear to have violated the gag order issued by the federal judge who oversaw matters related to the classified documents case based on DOJ’s own interpretation of that order.F 29 On the same day that he provided the information about the subpoenas to Reuters, Patel summarily fired Plaintiffs Bacon, Feldman, Granados, Herrera, Kaufman, Linton, Matanic, and Vaccaro. Patel fired Plaintiff Ray the following day. In the article, three unnamed FBI “sources” linked the Plaintiffs’ terminations to the “revelations” about the phone records subpoenas in the classified documents case.F 30
8 Jana Winter, FBI Obtained Kash Patel and Susie Wiles Phone Records During Biden Administration, Reuters (Feb. 25, 2026), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-obtained-kash-patel-susie-wiles-phone-records-during-bidenadministration-2026-02-25/.
29 Order Prohibiting Volume II Release; Deposition Testimony of Jack Smith, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Dec. 17, 2025, at 13:12–20, available at https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicansjudiciary.house.gov/files/2025-12/Smith-Depo-Transcript Redacted-w-Errata.pdf.
30 Winter, supra n.28.
Kash debauched himself at the Olympics, putting his job at risk. He got a corrupt Special Agent who reported directly to him to access the stolen documents file, apparently for the first time. He leaked one detail of it to his favorite mouthpiece. And based on that, he fired nine people, six of whom had specific expertise on Iran (which expertise Kash also denied to Congress), just days before Trump launched a war on Iran.
That’s a pretty damning impeachment-in-a-box even before you get into Kash’s specific exposure in helping his boss steal classified documents, including many pertaining to Iran, or his order to a flunky to go find out what a criminal investigation into his own conduct said about him.
I. Introduction
II. Jurisdiction and Venue
III. Parties: This section which provides provocative biographies of the nine plaintiffs and the defendants. Among other things, it describes how Kash personally thanked three plaintiffs (Jennifer Bacon, Harrison Kaufman, and Jeremy Linton) for their work, and describes how six of the nine (Gilbert Granados, Catherine Herrera, Kaufman, Linton, Erin Matanic, and Danielle Ray) had past expertise or were working on Iranian matters when Kash fired them just days before Trump launched a war in Iran.
IV. Facts
- A. Washington Field Office Counterintelligence and Intelligence Division Squads
- B. Plaintiffs Are Assigned to Investigate Trump’s Unlawful Retention and Mishandling of Classified Documents: This section includes a description of Trump’s crimes, which are all cited to public documents but have an interesting emphasis and which also answer questions that have been raised in Congress.
- C. While Still a Private Citizen, Defendant Patel Injected Himself into Plasmic Echo: This section describes Kash’s public blabbing in 2022, his subpoena to testify (served by Linton), his immunized testimony, a subpoena investigators obtained for Kash’s communications around the same time, his partying at the Olympics, and his attempt to use the subpoena as an excuse to fire the plaintiffs to distract from his partying.
- As part of this section, it describes Kash’s claims to Congress on March 19 and September 15 about why he fired the plaintiffs, and then describes the public evidence those claims are false.
- D. Defendants Publicly Impugn Plaintiffs and Smear Their Work as Politically Motivated: This section describes what it labels as “defendants” attacking the stolen documents case, which includes Trump’s statements and that of his officials, but also includes Kash’s comments from before and after he returned to government.
- E. Plaintiffs Are Summarily Terminated: Having already described how Kash lied about why he fired plaintiffs (and provided some of the proof that he did lie), the complaint then describes how each plaintiff was terminated, naming the FBI managers who affirmatively told plaintiffs they were not being fired for cause, explaining to anyone who might want to know how to find proof that Kash lied to Congress.
- Along with individualized descriptions of how each plaintiff was terminated (which is necessary for the lawsuit), this section also describes how, the day after Kash’s debauchery in Italy, the corrupt FBI Agent who spied on Jim Comey’s Attorney-Client communications, Miles Starr, took steps to find out who was on the stolen documents case. This is necessary to substantiate the claim that Kash fired plaintiffs because of his own embarrassment, but it important for other reasons.
V. FBI Policies on Dismissal
VI. Causes of Action
VII. Request for ReliefThe post The Kash Patel Impeachment Referral Inside the Employment Lawsuit appeared first on emptywheel.