Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Would-be FBI special agent alleges dismissal was based on display of Pride flag he received from FBI leadership, (Nov 20, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

He alleges that he had finished 16 of the 19 weeks of training and had passed all major tests and, prior to training, he had been a successful FBI employee for 16 years.

On October 1, 2025, the plaintiff, a long-time employee of the FBI and a would-be special agent, was fired from his job. He filed suit this week, alleging that his termination violated his rights under the U.S. Constitution and was impermissibly based on his display of a Pride flag at his workstation at the Los Angeles Field Office (LAFO).

In 2008, he began volunteering as an intern assigned to the LAFO and in 2009, he joined the FBI as a full-time employee in an operational support role assigned to a team investigating public corruption in greater Los Angeles. In 2014, he was promoted to serve as a staff operations specialist, an intelligence role in which he supported the FBI’s efforts to prevent and combat cyber-attacks against the United States.

Pride flag displayed. He also won awards for his leadership roles regarding diversity and inclusion in the years leading up to 2025, including in 2022 the Justice Department’s highest award for performance in support of the EEO Program. In 2021, the LAFO leadership gave him two pride flags that had flown from the flagpole in front of the LAFO, and he displayed one of them at his workspace.

16 weeks at Quantico. In 2025 he applied to and was accepted by the FBI’s Special Agent training academy at Quantico and by the first day of October, he had successfully completed 16 of the 19 weeks of the program. On that day, however, he received a letter terminating his employment with the FBI, which was signed by Kash Patel.

“Poor judgment” and termination. Patel wrote that he had “determined that [Maltinsky] exercised poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage in [his] work area during [his] previous assignment at the Los Angeles Field Office.” In other words, the lawsuit later filed by the employee alleged, Patel fired him “for displaying a pride flag at his workstation that had been flown by the FBI at the LAFO and then given by the FBI to Maltinsky.”

In the lawsuit he filed in D.C. federal court, he includes causes of action for First Amendment retaliation, viewpoint discrimination/expressive association under the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment equal protection violations, declaratory judgment, and mandamus relief. He seeks reinstatement, back pay, benefits, declaratory and injunctive relief, attorney’s fees, and a jury trial.

The case is No. 1:25-cv-04031.

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