FBI Director Kash Patel has allegedly fired a former FBI employee and new agent trainee for displaying a gay Pride flag on his desk at a California field office last year, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The trainee, who worked as an FBI support specialist in Los Angeles, received a termination letter dated October 1 — the first day of the government shutdown — and signed by Patel, claiming he had displayed an improper “political” message in the workplace, according to CNN.
At the time, he was completing new agent training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Before entering agent training, the employee served as a diversity program coordinator in the Los Angeles field office, earning multiple awards for his service during his FBI career.
The termination letter cited President Donald Trump’s Article II powers under the U.S. Constitution to dismiss federal career employees — a rationale also invoked in other recent Justice Department and FBI firings that are now being challenged in court.
“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,” the letter stated.
“After reviewing the facts and circumstances and considering your probationary status, I have determined that you exercised poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage in your work area during your previous assignment in the Los Angeles Field Office,” Patel wrote, notably without mentioning the Pride flag.
Two former FBI officials told CNN that displaying a Pride flag at one’s desk has never been considered a policy violation. But since taking office, President Donald Trump has moved to purge what he calls “woke” ideology from the federal government.
The FBI has not commented publicly on the case.
The firing comes less than a week after Patel dismissed more than a dozen FBI employees who had knelt during a 2020 protest in Washington, D.C., while conducting crowd control. The agents had taken a knee to de-escalate tensions with demonstrators angered by the police killing of George Floyd, whose death became a rallying cry against police brutality and anti-Black prejudice.
Although the agents’ decision to kneel successfully de-escalated the confrontation, it drew criticism from conservatives, including within the FBI. Former Director Christopher Wray later concluded that kneeling did not violate bureau policy.
MSNBC reports that news of the trainee’s firing prompted some agents in the FBI’s Washington field office to review their workspaces and social media accounts for any signs of personal identity or comments that might offend conservatives, including Trump and his appointees.
In the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration, FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors reportedly warned one another to avoid displaying information revealing their sexual orientation or expressing support for LGBTQ rights. Afterward, some agents cautioned colleagues that pro-Trump appointees within the bureau were allegedly searching internal files to identify LGBTQ employees.
DOJ Pride, an LGBTQ employee resource group within the Department of Justice, shut down in January after Trump issued executive orders eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government and declaring that the government would recognize only two sexes, not gender identity.
“In this time of uncertainty and concern, we have taken the extraordinary measure of ceasing operations of DOJ Pride,” the group wrote in an email to members, expressing hope that it might be able to reconstitute under a more supportive administration. “We have made this decision in the interest and for the protection of all members.”
The Turning Point USA co-founder, who once declared Pride a “sin” and opposed LGBTQ rights, was killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by an assassin's bullet during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
The 31-year-old was the co-founder of Turning Point USA, an organization advocating for conservative politics and education on high school and college campuses.
At the time of the shooting, Kirk, who appeared on campus as part of his "American Comeback Tour," was taking questions from people in the crowd while seated at a "Prove Me Wrong" table in the Sorensen Center courtyard on campus, according to The Associated Press.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has canceled a $12 million grant to California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) -- a federal initiative created under the Affordable Care Act to teach abstinence and contraception to at-risk youth.
The Trump administration balked at the program’s inclusion of transgender identity, reports Reuters, accusing educators of "indoctrinating" children with "gender ideology."
In a letter to the California Department of Public Health, HHS said it was rescinding the grant because "the grant is not being administered consistent with the authorizing statute, as the funded programs and services include gender ideology which is outside the scope of the statute."
On Sept. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court denied South Carolina's emergency request to enforce its bathroom ban, allowing a transgender boy at a public high school to keep using the boys' restroom while his legal challenge to the law moves forward.
South Carolina pointed to several recent actions by the Trump administration to justify its request, including an executive order threatening to pull federal funding from schools that don't maintain sex-segregated facilities, enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Education, and the Supreme Court's June ruling upholding Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
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