Legal representatives for Department of Justice and FBI employees reportedly targeted for termination by the Trump administration sent a letter to the acting attorney general saying any firings would violate due process and threaten national security.
The Associated Press reported Friday that administration officials were moving to fire FBI agents engaged in investigations involving President Donald Trump in the coming days.
That report followed CNN saying that administration officials told at least six senior FBI officials to retire, resign, or be fired by Monday.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove fired eight senior FBI officials from agency headquarters as well as the heads of the Miami and Washington, D.C., field offices.
In a letter to Bove dated Sunday, whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid, former Ambassador Norman Eisen and retired Judge Nancy Gertner said individuals affected by the firings were being unlawfully terminated. They also said that making their names public could endanger them and their families.
"This letter is placing on notice the Department and those individuals implementing any such decisions that they will be held to account through all available legal means," the letter said, CBS News justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane posted Monday morning on X.
"If you proceed with terminations and/or public exposure of terminated employees' identities, we stand ready to vindicate their rights through all available legal means," the letter said, Zaid posted Sunday night on X.
Eisen and Gertner represent State Democracy Defenders Action, an anti-Trump organization that "comprehensively catalogs all of Trump’s and his allies' Project 2025 and other specific plans and promises," according to the group's website.
"These actions appear to be in violation of the due process rights of those to be unlawfully discharged," the letter read, Shore News Network reported. "Moreover, if information about these individuals is made publicly available, it also threatens the safety of dedicated career public servants and potentially of their innocent family members.
"The continuation of this course of action is a direct assault on the national security of the American citizens you have sworn to faithfully and unselfishly serve."
On Sunday, FBI employees were ordered to answer a questionnaire about any work they may have done on criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The list of questions in the memo, seen by Reuters, direct employees to give their job title, any role they played in the investigations into Jan. 6 and whether they helped supervise such investigations.
Bove on Friday demanded that the FBI by Tuesday at noon Eastern time turn over to him a list of every employee who worked on Jan. 6 cases, as well as a list of those who worked on a criminal case filed last year against leaders of the Hamas terrorist group in connection with the Gaza war.
Last week, Bove fired more than a dozen career DOJ prosecutors who worked on the two now-dismissed criminal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith against Trump, one involving actions challenging the 2020 election results and the other involving classified government documents.
Reuters contributed to this story.