Kash Patel fired longtime FBI employee over Pride flag display

FBI Director Kash Patel, one of the Trump administration’s highest ranking Asian American officials, reportedly fired a longtime bureau employee undergoing agent training over his display of a Pride flag at his previous workstation, a dismissal that critics say reflects a systematic effort to remove LGBTQ+ personnel from federal service.

What happened: The employee spent more than a decade working in a non-agent capacity at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, where he served as a diversity program coordinator and earned an Attorney General’s Award in 2022. While training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday, he reportedly received a dismissal letter from Patel accusing him of exercising “poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage” at his prior California assignment. The letter purportedly cited Trump’s constitutional authority under Article II to remove career federal workers.

Two FBI veterans told CNN that displaying a Pride flag at a workstation would not typically violate bureau policy, but Trump’s anti-“woke” agenda has become a priority. The reported dismissal, which came as the latest government shutdown began, prompted some Washington field office agents to review their own workspaces and online profiles for material that might offend Trump, his appointees or MAGA supporters.

Reactions: California Rep. Mark Takano, an openly gay Democrat who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, characterized the move as part of a persistent pattern. “Trump and his Administration have been obsessively trying to purge our community from the federal workforce since they took power,” he told The Advocate, adding that “they’re also firing people for simply being LGBTQI+ or doing work that supports the LGBTQI+ community.”

Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats said Patel should prioritize national security instead of “policing desk displays” and pledged to hold accountable an FBI director who “tragically deprofessionalizes and weaponizes the world’s strongest law enforcement agency.” Such concerns predated Trump’s inauguration: In the weeks before he took office in January, federal law enforcement personnel began warning colleagues to avoid revealing their sexual orientation or displaying support for LGBTQ+ rights.

The big picture: The alleged firing came just days after Patel dismissed more than a dozen FBI employees for kneeling during 2020 crowd control operations in Washington after protesters confronted them, despite a determination by then-Director Christopher Wray that the conduct was consistent with bureau policy.

Just two weeks ago, Patel sat for congressional hearings that questioned his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, his response to the Charlie Kirk shooting and claims of retaliatory firings. A federal lawsuit by three dismissed senior FBI officials alleges Patel admitted the terminations were “likely illegal” but justified them by saying “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.”