The FBI fired a group of agents who were photographed kneeling on the street in an attempt to relieve tensions during a protest for racial justice in Washington in 2020.
The photo was taken after George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis, three people said familiar on Friday (26).
The dispensations occurred amid a wave of layoffs within the agency since, a supporter of President Donald Trump, was confirmed in February by the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, to lead the FBI. It was not clear exactly how many FBI agents were fired.
The FBI agent association issued a statement on Friday (26) saying that “vehemently condemns the illegal dismissal of more than a dozen special agents,” but did not mention what may have caused layoffs.
The three sources, which spoke to the Reuters news agency on an anonymity condition, estimated the number of layoffs between 15 and 22 employees, including agents who were harshly criticized by right -wing commentators for kneeling during.
The agents in question, portrayed in photos and videos of the case, were not kneeling in a demonstration of sympathy by the Black Lives Matter movement, as critics suggested, but made the gesture to relieve tensions between protesters and the authorities, the sources said.
Some multitudes control measures employed during the protests. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters near the White House before Trump, who was fulfilled his first term as president, crossing Lafayette Square to a nearby church.
Earlier this month, former FBI interim director Brian Driscoll and two other former employees who were dismissed without cause in August sued the Trump government, claiming that they were dismissed in a “retaliation campaign” that targeted authorities considered unfair.
The lawsuit claims that Kash Patel said he received orders to dismiss anyone who had worked on a criminal investigation against Trump and that his own job depended on these layoffs.
“The FBI tried to put the president in prison, and he didn’t forget that,” Patel told Discoll, according to the process.
