(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Attorneys for gay former FBI employee David Maltinsky, who was fired from his job as a non-agent employee at the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office in October 2025 after more than 16 years of service for displaying an LGBTQ Pride flag at his workstation, filed court papers on July 15 opposing a motion by government attorneys to dismiss some but not all of the provisions in his unlawful discrimination lawsuit seeking to overturn the firing.
Maltinsky’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. on Nov. 19, 2025, states that FBI Director Kash Patel acted illegally by violating Maltinsky’s First Amendment constitutional rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 by ordering his firing on grounds that he “exercised poor judgement with an inappropriate display of political signage” by displaying the Pride flag.
The firing came at a time when Maltinsky successfully completed 16 weeks of the FBI’s 19-week training program at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Va. to become an FBI Special Agent, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to Patel, who took office as FBI director in February 2025 under the Trump administration, the lawsuit names as defendants the FBI itself, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI.
“Defendants discriminated against Maltinsky for engaging in protected speech, for his sexual orientation, and for opposing discrimination – a clear and brazen violation of federal law and the Constitution,” the lawsuit states in an amended complaint filed May 5, 2026.
The Department of Justice, which is representing the FBI in its response to the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the lawsuit and why it is seeking dismissal of some but not all of the lawsuit’s multiple allegations, including its claim that the firing violated Maltinsky’s First Amendment rights.
In its “Partial” motion filed on June 15, 2026, to dismiss some provisions in the lawsuit, the Justice Department through Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate and Associate Branch Director Christopher Hall, stated that the lawsuit fails to provide sufficient evidence that Maltinsky was fired because he is gay.
“The Amended Complaint contains no factual allegations that Director Patel or any other decisionmaker expressed hostility toward gay employees, relied on Plaintiff’s sexual orientation in making employment decisions, even knew Plaintiff’s sexual orientation or otherwise indicated that Plaintiff’s status as a gay man played any role in the challenged actions,” the motion states.
Based on that, among other things, the motion says the lawsuit’s claim that the firing violated the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be dismissed. A 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that the 1964 law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity along with its other categories including race, religion, and gender.
In its arguments that the decision to fire Maltinsky was illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, the lawsuit’s amended complaint points out that FBI officials at the Los Angeles Field Office where Maltinsky worked presented the Pride flag to him and gave him full permission to display it at his workstation.
“The FBI encouraged and honored Maltinsky’s work by awarding him the 2020 Director’s Award For Excellence-Outstanding Service in Diversity and Inclusion,” the lawsuit says. “In 2022, the Attorney General for the Department of Justice awarded Maltinsky the Attorney General’s Award for Equal Employment Opportunity, DOJ’s highest award for performance in support of the Equal Employment Program,” it says.
“In special recognition of Maltinsky’s efforts to improve the FBI, in June 2021 LAFO [Los Angeles Field Office] leadership entrusted to Maltinsky two Pride flags that had been flown from the flagpole located in front of the LAFO,” the lawsuit complaint continues. “Maltinsky displayed one of those flags at his workstation.”
Although the lawsuit doesn’t say so directly, all of that happened during the administration of President Joe Biden and previous FBI Director Christopher Wray, who held the director’s position from August 2017 to January 2025, when Donald Trump took office as president.
Nathaniel Zelinsky, one of the attorneys representing Maltinsky regarding the lawsuit, told the Blade that because the Justice Department did not contest the lawsuit’s First Amendment provisions, the case will move forward to the discovery stage, in which he and fellow attorneys can seek and obtain government documents, and most likely go to trial. He said that regardless of whether the judge approves the dismissal of the lawsuit provisions the government has asked for, the other provisions and the case as a whole will continue.
“And those First Amendment claims are extremely serious,” he said. “The government, by its admission, fired David Maltinsky because they did not like the speech he displayed when he put up the Pride flag that was gifted to him by the FBI,” Zelinsky said. “The federal government cannot discriminate against its workers based on their speech.”
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