Nine former FBI employees who worked on the classified documents investigation of Donald Trump sued FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday, Oct. 15, NBC News and the Washington Examiner reported. The suit also names their agencies and was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., the Examiner reported. The group says the firings were "unlawful," NBC reported.

The lawsuit says FBI Special Agent Miles Starr demanded urgent access to the "Plasmic Echo" case file, the code name for the documents investigation, on Feb. 23, NBC reported. That was a day after video of Patel partying with the U.S. men's hockey team at the Winter Olympics began circulating online, the Examiner reported. Starr said he had instructions from Patel to access the file, the Examiner reported. Eight of the employees were fired on Feb. 25 and the ninth the next day, according to the Examiner. The suit suggests Patel may have been trying to get back into Trump's "good graces," the Examiner reported.

Termination letters signed by Patel said the employees showed "poor judgment and a lack of impartiality in carrying out their duties, leading to the political weaponization of the government," according to NBC. The suit says that claim is false. Patel later said before Congress that the employees were fired for cause after internal investigations, NBC reported, which the suit disputes. The Examiner reported that Patel said they were fired for "unethical" or "inappropriate" conduct, which the plaintiffs deny.

The employees say they "did not volunteer to participate in Plasmic Echo; they were assigned to the case" because of the squads they were on, NBC reported. "As a result of their unlawful and hasty firings, Plaintiffs' investigations were not properly transferred to other FBI Special Agents or Analysts," the 70-page lawsuit states, according to the Examiner.

The group wants the court to give them their jobs back, award back pay and other damages, and declare that their First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated, the Examiner reported. Their lawyers, including Abbe D. Lowell, said the agents were fired "because they did their jobs," according to NBC. NBC said it had reached out to the FBI and the Justice Department for comment.

What we know: Nine fired FBI employees from the Trump documents case have sued Patel and Blanche.
What we don't: How the FBI and the Justice Department will respond in court.