The FBI has fired a group of agents who kneeled during a civil rights-related protest in Washington, D.C., in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Many of the agents worked at the FBI’s Washington Field Office at the time, and they were photographed in early June 2020 kneeling at the protest, the sources said.
At least some of them were reassigned earlier this year, but now as many as 20 agents have been fired, the sources added.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter.
One source familiar with the matter said the agents kneeled during the protest as a de-escalation strategy, after angry protesters — outnumbering the agents — urged them to kneel. The source said a previous internal review of the agents’ actions found that the kneeling was not meant to be a political statement of solidarity with the protesters.
The FBI Agents Association issued a statement condemning the terminations, which it said numbered more than a dozen FBI special agents, including some who were military veterans.
The group said the firings are part of a “dangerous new pattern of actions” by FBI Director Kash Patel, which “are weakening the Bureau because they eliminate valuable expertise and damage trust between leadership and the workforce, and make it harder to recruit and retain skilled agents—ultimately putting our nation at greater risk.”
ABC News’ Jack Date contributed to this report.
