By Spencer S. Hsu, Jeremy Roebuck · The Washington Post (c) 2025
A federal judge on Friday barred the Trump administration from publicly naming FBI personnel in its review of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack prosecutions, after agents sued over concerns that the Justice Department or third-parties, such as Elon Musk, could put law enforcement officers at risk if they access and disclose their personal information.
U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb of Washington entered a consent order after the government agreed not to disseminate “to the public, directly or indirectly,” the list of agents’ FBI employee ID numbers and any record of associated names without giving two days notice for suing agents to go back to court.
The Justice Department agreed to the two-page order Friday afternoon as new developments emerged in an internal battle between the department and its primary investigative arm. Interim leaders appointed by Trump have led a purge of top bureau executives and ordered a sweeping review of its 38,000-member workforce for agents and employees across the country who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the FBI last week to identify “the core team in Washington D.C.” responsible for investigating Jan. 6 cases. When the bureau’s acting leadership initially refused, Bove described that decision in a memo Wednesday as “insubordination” and demanded the names of every agent or employee across the country who had touched Jan. 6 cases.
Acting FBI director Brian J. Driscoll provided a list of more than 5,000 bureau personnel, identified only by employee ID number.
On Thursday, Driscoll informed FBI staff that he had complied with a subsequent Justice Department demand for the agents’ names.
In an email obtained by The Washington Post, Driscoll said those names had been shared through a classified system to protect employees from being publicly identified. Still, he urged employees to consider scrubbing their online footprints.
“With any release of identifying information of FBI personnel, I am well aware there is a possibility we may be targeted for doxing, SWATing, and other threats,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
He added later: “I want to be clear that as of now we do not have information indicating that the Department of Justice intends to disseminate these lists publicly, and they are fully aware of the risks we believe are inherent in doing so.”
In federal court in Washington, two groups of agents who worked either on the Jan. 6 probes or special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump anonymously sued the department, saying that if their names became public it could expose them and their families to retribution.
They pointed to the fact that Musk, a tech billionaire who oversees President Donald Trump’s newly created U.S. DOGE Service, has already gained access to other agencies and publicly named other government employees in social media posts, exposing them to a barrage of unwanted attention and online harassment.
In a statement, President Natalie Bara of the FBI Agents Association, a co-plaintiff in one of the suits, called the order an “important step” to protect “FBI agents who have dedicated their careers to upholding the rule of law and defending our country.”
The order “ensures that FBI agents who are keeping our country and our communities safe can continue to do their jobs without fear of public exposure or retaliation,” said Chris Mattei, an attorney for the FBIAA.
Friday’s order was similar to one entered Thursday in an unrelated D.C. federal lawsuit seeking to block further third-party access to the Treasury Department’s trillion-dollar payment system, after representatives of DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, gained entry to the system.
“We don’t have assurances that DOGE does not have access to DOJ computer systems,” Margaret Donovan, a lawyer for the FBI Agents Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents bureau employees, said at a Thursday hearing before Cobb. “We don’t have assurances that there aren’t any other nongovernment persons that might be operating within DOJ that would immediately release those names.”
“If this information were released,” Cobb said, “I think there’s no question that it would put a number of FBI agents in immediate, significant danger.”
Friday’s order will remain in place until either Cobb decides whether to bar release of names through the course of the lawsuit or the government moves to name the agents.
The Justice Department’s review of the Jan. 6 investigation was prompted by an executive order titled “ending the weaponization of the federal government” that Trump signed within hours of his Jan. 20 inauguration.
The order and other White House and Justice Department documents have referred to the Capitol breach investigation and asserted that fired prosecutors could not be trusted to faithfully execute Trump’s agenda. Trump described the investigation as “a grave national injustice against the American people” when he pardoned nearly 1,600 defendants.
Justice Department officials have told the FBI that bureau employees on the list of Jan. 6 investigators could also be subject to personnel actions, although Bove appeared to temper that possibility in a memo Wednesday.
“No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties,” Bove wrote Driscoll. “The only individuals who should be concerned about the process … are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from Department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI.”
In their lawsuits, agents said they’re not just worried about being fired. They have maintained that pardoned Jan. 6 rioters could seek revenge on those who helped secure their charges or convictions.
Cobb did not issue an opinion with the consent order Friday. During Thursday’s hearing, she said had questions about the purpose of the Justice Department’s review.
“What’s this being used for?” she asked. “I want to know what the government plans to do with this information and what the government is investigating.”