A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to keep confidential a list of F.B.I. agents and employees who worked on investigations into rioters from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The Trump administration had consented to the text of the temporary restraining order after negotiations with lawyers for two groups of anonymous F.B.I. agents and employees who had filed lawsuits earlier this week to block any release of the identities.
The dispute grew out of a demand by Emil Bove, a former criminal defense lawyer for President Trump who is now the acting deputy attorney general, that the bureau compile and turn over a comprehensive list of the law enforcement officials.
Mr. Bove has been helping to oversee the Trump administration scourging of the nation’s federal law enforcement apparatus, an effort that has included firing or sidelining top career employees across the Justice Department and the F.B.I., and firing prosecutors who participated in the criminal cases against Mr. Trump or against the Jan. 6 rioters.
At a hearing on Thursday before Judge Jia M. Cobb, a Justice Department attorney said the department leadership had no intention of making the list public. He said it was instead commissioned for an internal review.
But lawyers for the F.B.I. employees argued that other names of national security officials targeted by Mr. Trump and his allies had been appearing in official documents and media reports. They argued that any release or leak of the list would put the employees and their families at risk.
On the night of his inauguration, Mr. Trump granted clemency to all the nearly 1,600 people charged in the Jan. 6 riot, including releasing from prison people who were serving long sentences for attacking law enforcement officials.
One of several lawyers for F.B.I. agents, Norman Eisen, hailed the result as a victory.
“The order that the judge entered is a significant milestone in stopping the administration’s assault on American law enforcement, including the brave men and women of the F.B.I. who did nothing more than lawfully and righteously prosecute those who assaulted the Capitol on January 6,” he said.
Last Friday, Mr. Bove demanded a list of every F.B.I. employee who worked on any of the Jan. 6 cases and a description of what they did — apparently thousands of officials. But the list turned over on Tuesday by the acting director of the F.B.I., Brian J. Driscoll Jr., substituted employee identification numbers for names.
Mr. Bove then accused Mr. Driscoll of “insubordination” in an email he had Mr. Driscoll forward to the F.B.I. work force, while suggesting that he was merely focused on whether the F.B.I.’s “core team” that was responsible for the investigation had committed any misconduct.
As part of its court filing agreeing to the restraining order, the Justice Department informed Judge Cobb that the F.B.I. had also provided “a record that pairs the unique identifiers on the list at issue in this case with the corresponding names of the F.B.I. personnel.”
The order to keep those identities confidential binds the entire government while litigation unfolds over whether Judge Cobb should issue an injunction. But the government has the option to give two days’ notice that it intends to release names of F.B.I. personnel on the list, which would create time for further litigation first.
The F.B.I. Agents Association is one of the plaintiffs. Its president, Natalie Bara, said in a statement that the order “provides critical safeguards, preventing immediate public exposure or retaliation and ensuring that F.B.I. agents can remain focused on protecting the American people. We appreciate the court’s recognition of the serious concerns at stake.”
The order is part of a growing constellation of short-term judicial blocks to aspects of Mr. Trump’s policies. Dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of some of his actions have been filed against the administration since it took office in January, and the judicial orders are designed to create time to litigate those cases.
Judges have also issued restraining orders or injunctions involving the administration’s attempt to impose a blanket freeze on trillions of dollars in grants and loans; end birthright citizenship for children born on American soil to undocumented immigrants; move transgender female inmates to male prisons; and give access to a Treasury Department payment system to associates of the billionaire Elon Musk working on his government-slashing project.
Mr. Eisen’s group is also representing plaintiffs in the Treasury Department case. “This is the latest in a mounting wave of judicial opposition to the administration’s attack on the rule of law,” he said.
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