A group of 12 FBI employees who were fired earlier this year for taking a knee during a George Floyd protest in 2020 sued the Trump administration on Monday to get their jobs back.

The special agents compared their actions to the early days of the American Revolution and claim they knelt to deescalate the volatile situation, not to make a political statement.

“Plaintiffs are the real patriots President Washington envisions,” the employees, who filed the lawsuit anonymously, claimed.

Nationwide demonstrations and riots broke out in response to Floyd’s death during an encounter with Minneapolis police in May 2020. The riots also empowered the Black Lives Matter movement, which prompted supporters to take a knee as a gesture against perceived racial injustices.

The agents say they were patrolling downtown Washington on June 4, 2020, when they were confronted by a violent mob that included hostile protesters, along with families and young children.

The FBI agents claim the city’s second week of riots following Floyd’s death was comparable to the Boston Massacre in 1770, when Bostonians violently rioted after the British Stamp Act was passed. The incident in which five patriots were killed is widely regarded as the spark that led to the American Revolution.

“But the Plaintiffs did not repeat the mistakes of the British soldiers who fearfully fired their weapons into a crowd of dissenting Americans in 1770,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, finding their backs to a wall, Plaintiffs remained calm.”

The plaintiffs claim they kneeled in front of the rioters to save lives, which resulted in the crowds dispersing. No shots were fired.

The agents state in the lawsuit that they were trained in counterintelligence and counterterrorism and had firearms but were not equipped with protective gear or nonlethal munitions to control the crowd.

After photos of the agents became public, the FBI—then under Director Christopher Wray—conducted an internal review, which found their actions were in line with FBI policy and they should not be reprimanded.

FBI Director Kash Patel reopened an internal review of the incident this year. He fired the 12 employees in September by sending them termination letters accusing them of “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government,” according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs allege the Trump administration violated their constitutional rights under the First and Fifth Amendments by retaliating against them, denying them their free speech and due process rights.

FBI Director Kash Patel speaks at agency headquarters in Washington on Nov. 26, 2025. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The employees want their jobs back with backpay and other monetary relief. They also asked the judge to clear their names and have the termination expunged from their personnel files.

The FBI declined to comment to The Epoch Times on the pending litigation.