A longtime Justice Department official fired after a hidden-camera “honeypot” sting has sued Attorney General Pamela Bondi and the U.S. government.
Court documents allege Joseph Schnitt was illegally removed without due process after right-wing operative James O’Keefe secretly recorded him on a Hinge date.
Schnitt had spent more than two decades at DOJ and was serving as acting deputy chief of the Special Operations Unit, which oversees the Federal Witness Security Program, when Bondi personally terminated him on Sept. 5, 2025.
In a 23-page complaint filed Monday in D.C. federal court, Schnitt claims DOJ “arbitrarily and unlawfully” ousted him over comments he made during what he believed was a private lunch with a potential romantic partner.
Schnitt was targeted by an undercover operative working for O’Keefe Media Group, who used the alias “Skylar” to lure him into discussing the Jeffrey Epstein files—a subject dominating headlines at the time.
In the video that followed, O’Keefe presented Schnitt as revealing insider knowledge about how DOJ planned to redact Republican or conservative names in the files, but “leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files.”
DOJ later posted what it said was Schnitt’s internal explanation on X in an apparent effort to distance itself from him—a move the department apologized for publicly.
But Schnitt says the entire sting was a setup—and that he repeatedly told “Skylar” he had no internal knowledge and was only sharing opinions based on public reporting. The operative was later identified as Dominique Phillips, a figure previously linked to Turning Point USA, according to the complaint.
Bondi’s one-page termination memo cited Article II authority and declared his date-night remarks “publicly inappropriate” and “detrimental to the interests of the Department.”
Schnitt’s lawsuit argues that the memo violated the First and Fifth Amendments, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Privacy Act, and that the DOJ unlawfully pulled and published records from his system-of-records file.
“Had he possessed any information about the topic through his official duties, he never would have said anything,” Schnitt’s attorney Mark Zaid wrote in the court complaint.
“But, like most people in the United States, it was a topic he was familiar with and seemingly normal to discuss, especially within the region of Washington, D.C.”
Zaid writes that Schnitt’s comments, made without knowing he was on camera, were simply a private exchange outside work hours and therefore protected speech on a matter of public concern.
Schnitt seeks reinstatement, back pay, damages, and a court-ordered name-clearing hearing.
When asked by the Daily Beast for a comment, a DOJ spokesperson declined. Turning Point USA and O’Keefe Media Group were also approached for comment.
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