The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was supposed to finish Donald Trump.
Now the agents who executed it just got subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.
And the only person who can save them is the judge who already ended the prosecution.
Fired FBI Agents Who Executed the Mar-a-Lago Raid Now Face Grand Jury Subpoenas
In August 2022, FBI agents swarmed a former president's private residence, hauled out boxes, and handed the Biden Justice Department its weapon against Donald Trump.
Four years later, those same agents are in federal court asking a federal judge to protect them from the legal consequences of executing it.
Their lawyers filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida asking Judge Aileen Cannon to clarify a February order that buried Volume II of Special Counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago report.
The problem is straightforward: a Fort Pierce grand jury wants their full testimony about the investigation, but Cannon's order restricts exactly what they're permitted to share.
According to the Associated Press, two former FBI employees received grand jury subpoenas earlier this month, with one scheduled to testify as early as next week and two more witnesses set for the week after.
The FBI had already reached out in July and August requesting voluntary interviews, warning that grand jury testimony would follow. Their lawyers now say they want to cooperate – but cannot without Cannon's guidance on what they're permitted to disclose.
Federal prosecutors are examining an alleged conspiracy to deprive Trump of his civil rights – a probe that stretches from the Russia collusion hoax investigation in 2016 through the August 2022 Mar-a-Lago search.
Former CIA Director John Brennan received a subpoena to testify in the same probe, and a former supervisor in the FBI's Russia investigation has already sat for an immunity interview with prosecutors.
Kash Patel Fired These Agents and Now DOJ Is Floating Immunity
The agents' lawyers described a three-way trap their clients now face.
Their legal options reduce to three: testify freely and risk contempt of Cannon's secrecy order, hold back and obstruct a federal grand jury proceeding, or invoke the Fifth Amendment – which their own lawyers concede would create what the filing calls "unnecessary negative options for innocent former civil servants."
Innocent people don't typically insert a preemptive declaration of innocence into a court filing before speaking to a grand jury.
The Justice Department has floated immunity for at least some of the witnesses but has not formally offered it. Witnesses don't require immunity negotiations to walk through the door; people with legal exposure do.
Most of these agents were fired by FBI Director Kash Patel in February 2026 after it emerged that Biden-era FBI leadership had secretly subpoenaed phone records tied to Patel himself and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – and buried that surveillance in prohibited case files specifically designed to evade oversight.
One of the now-subpoenaed agents wrote the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. Another reviewed the entirety of Volume II – the section of Jack Smith's report on the documents case that Cannon has refused to make public.
The agents facing that grand jury didn't observe the raid – they authorized it.
Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago Case Is Now a Civil Rights Conspiracy Probe Against the Agents
The firings came after the DOJ probe surfaced evidence that agents used the classified documents investigation as cover for surveilling Trump allies – and the agents who built that case are now answering for it before a Florida grand jury.
Judge Cannon dismissed the original documents case against Trump after ruling that Jack Smith's appointment as special counsel was unlawful – and she sits in the same Fort Pierce courthouse where the grand jury now meets.
The same judge who ended the prosecution of Trump is now the only person standing between these agents and an open contempt problem inside that grand jury room.
Requesting a federal judge's guidance before grand jury testimony is not something innocent witnesses do.
Biden's Justice Department pressed forward with the August 2022 raid over the objections of FBI field agents who questioned whether they had sufficient probable cause. DOJ got the broad warrant it demanded – residence, offices, storage areas.
Now the Fort Pierce grand jury is asking who gave that order, why, and whether the real target was always Trump's political future rather than the documents.
The raid was sold to America as the rule of law in action. The grand jury is now asking whose law, and applied to whom.
Sources:
- Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, "FBI Employees in Trump Mar-a-Lago Case Seek Clarity on Subpoenas in Florida 'Grand Conspiracy' Probe," Associated Press, September 24, 2026.
- Court filing, United States v. Trump et al., Southern District of Florida, September 25, 2026.
- Kaelan Deese, "FBI Records Contradict Claims Biden Was 'Not Aware' of Mar-a-Lago Raid," Washington Examiner, February 24, 2026.
