FBI Director Kash Patel fired a bureau employee recently for displaying a Pride flag at his desk while working as a FBI support specialist in Los Angeles last year. The employee received a letter of termination from Patel on Oct. 1 reading: “You are being summarily dismissed from your position as a New Agent Trainee at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and removed from the federal service,” Patel wrote. “After reviewing the facts and circumstances and considering your probationary status, I have determined that you exercised poor judgement with an inappropriate display of political signage in your work area during your previous assignment in the Los Angeles Field Office.”
CNN reports that the employee received the letter while training as a new agent at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The firing took place on the first day of the government shutdown after the White House threatened mass firings of federal employees. A source has since told MSNBC that the FBI was compiling a list of LGBTQ+ employees.
Though media outlets report the letter did not specifically address the Pride flag, multiple expert sources have told news outlets that it was the official reason for the employee’s termination.
The Trump Administration has sought to snuff out LGBTQ+ government associations since Trump’s first day back in office when he introduced the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology, Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order which declared that the federal government would only recognize two genders “male” and “female” which are not “changeable.”
DOJ Pride, an LGBTQ+ employee resource group at the Department of Justice was shut down in January following Trump’s executive orders against federal DEI efforts.
