On Thursday, a Biden-appointed judge threw out a lawsuit filed by FBI agents involved in the January 6 investigations, finding they lacked standing.
In her 32-page ruling, Judge Jia Cobb determined that the agents’ fear the DOJ might retaliate by disclosing the names of those who worked on the cases was “too speculative” to support their claim. “They do not plausibly allege that Defendants are about to engage in any of the conduct agents are worried about,” she wrote, per the Daily Caller.
Agents filed suit in early February after DOJ leadership ordered them to complete a survey about their January 6 investigations, fearing that turning over their information would expose them to danger. Though Cobb acknowledged their concerns, she concluded that the complaint provided no factual basis to support their claims.
“There is nothing in Plaintiffs’ amended complaint or the record before the Court—taken separately or considered together—from which the Court can reasonably conclude that Defendants have any plan to release Plaintiffs’ identities to the public,” she wrote. The judge also dismissed First Amendment claims about “hypothetical, future terminations and unspecified ‘adverse actions’ that may never occur.”
“Plaintiffs argue in their briefs that Defendants’ ongoing internal review of FBI agents is itself an adverse action that violates the First Amendment,” she wrote. “But those allegations are conspicuously absent from the amended complaint—the document in which Plaintiffs must make the contours of their claims clear.”
Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represented the agents, wrote on X that the “reality is we won.” He added: “I have little doubt that had we not intervened back in Feb names of all J6 FBI personnel were going to be released. We stopped that cold. Five months later circumstances are different. But if threat arises again, we will sue.”
