AMICUS BRIEF

LDAD's Amicus Brief Warns Court: Eroding Civil Service Law Threatens Rule of Law

June 28, 2021

Feb 16, 2026

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Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) filed an amicus curiae brief today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia urging the court to uphold longstanding civil service protections for senior career officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), warning that weakening those safeguards would invite political interference in federal law enforcement and undermine the rule of law.

The case focuses on the removal of three highly respected Senior Executive Service (SES) FBI officials—Brian J. Driscoll, Jr., Steven J. Jensen, and Spencer L. Evans—each of whom is protected by federal statutes requiring “for-cause” removal. According to the record, Driscoll and Jensen were terminated due to their involvement in the investigation of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, while Evans was dismissed for his role in administering FBI protocols related to the agency’s COVID-19 response.

LDAD argues that these statutory protections, enacted by Congress and upheld across administrations of both parties, are essential to ensuring that federal law enforcement decisions are driven by law and evidence—not political pressure, personal loyalty, or retaliation.

“The Constitution, the civil service laws, and more than two centuries of historical practice reflect a consistent bipartisan commitment to apolitical enforcement of the law,” the brief explains. From the Pendleton Act of the late nineteenth century to post-Watergate reforms, Congress and presidents alike have repeatedly acted to prevent the misuse of investigative and prosecutorial power for partisan or personal ends.

This case comes at a moment of heightened concern about political interference in federal law enforcement and growing efforts to expand presidential control over career civil servants. If statutory protections for senior FBI officials can be set aside based solely on the nature of investigations they oversaw or policies they administered, the independence of federal law enforcement—across administrations of either party—is fundamentally at risk. 

“The ability of the executive to replace career civil servants with political and personal loyalists is a classic and momentous step on the road to an authoritarian regime,” said Mitt Regan, an LDAD Board member and McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence at Georgetown University Law Center.

LDAD urged the court to uphold the existing statutory safeguards, calling them “a narrow, longstanding, and essential protection against the politicization of federal law enforcement” and a vital component of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.

LDAD volunteers Jill Ruhnke and Jacob Rolls took the lead in preparing the brief, with valuable assistance from LDAD volunteer Professor Laurie Blank of Emory Law School. Georgetown law students Kate Kahle and Samantha Sporn did superb work on research and preparation of the brief for filing.

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