Gay FBI Agent Was Fired for Displaying a Pride Flag (That the FBI Gave Him)

The purge of any federal employee with the slightest degree of conscience, empathy or critical thinking from every government department and agency has been well underway since the beginning of the second Trump administration, and has involved literally hundreds of thousands of people, so you’ll have to forgive us for missing some truly egregious cases in our wide-ranging coverage here at Splinter and Jezebel. In exactly the way that Trump and co. no doubt intend, it’s just impossible for anyone to keep up with the torrential flows of bullshit. Still, the occasional story about the administration’s cruel stupidity sometimes filters back into the public discourse, leaving us freshly gobsmacked at just how poorly the Trump 2.0 era has treated its public servants who are anything less than frothing MAGA zealots. Like, for instance: The gay FBI agent who was personally fired by Kash Patel for the crime of displaying a pride flag on his desk … that had been given to him as an award by the same FBI years earlier. Welcome to the Trump admin, where you get fired for displaying the commendations you’ve received for excelling at your job!

The employee in question is David Maltinsky, a 16-year veteran of the FBI who had apparently been working there since he was 20 or 21, as a decorated intelligence specialist and staff operations specialist based in the Los Angeles field office. He was also well known within the bureau for his work in the agency’s diversity and inclusion programs, serving as the Chairperson for the FBI Headquarters Diversity Advisory Committee, usually referred to as Bureau Equality, starting in 2019. That probably has something to do with why the bureau awarded Maltinsky a Progress Pride Flag that had hung outside the very same office, the Wilshire Federal Building in L.A., at a time when the United States had not yet entirely descended into a gay stigmatizing panic. Maltinsky chose to display this commendation on his desk in a display case, with a placard describing the flag’s history, even as he pursued his dream of becoming an FBI special agent in the field. And he was 16 weeks into the 19-week special agent training program when he received a letter from none other than FBI Director/whiskey enthusiast Kash Patel in October of 2025, informing him that he had been fired for exercising “poor judgement” by displaying a piece of “political signage” in the form of the pride flag at his workstation. He is now of course suing the Trump administration for trampling over his rights in the most obviously homophobic way possible.

Kash Patel fired this gay FBI employee over a Pride flag. His federal lawsuit is moving toward discovery

David Maltinsky is asking a federal judge to allow him to obtain internal FBI records and testimony regarding the decision to end his 16-year career.

www.advocate.com/politics/nat…

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— haversack (@hsack121.bsky.social) 12:47 PM · Jul 16, 2026

“David was boldly moved to a life of public service after the Pulse nightclub shooting claimed 49 lives in 2016, and in the years that followed he was an exceptional employee on track to become a Special Agent,” said attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky of the Washington Litigation Group. “Then Kash Patel and the Trump Administration targeted him not just for his speech, but for who he is. This shocking abuse of an honorable member of the federal law enforcement community cries out for justice.”

The offending flag had, perhaps unsurprisingly, sat in Maltinsky’s office for years, causing absolutely no trauma for anyone, until the second Trump administration came along with its directives to purge anyone from federal agencies who might not immediately follow their marching orders regardless of what they might be. The flag first elicited a complaint from “another employee” early in the Trump 2.0 era, and Maltinsky’s supervisor assured him at the time that everything about the display was “entirely permissible and appropriate,” according to the text of the lawsuit. Likewise, the chief legal counsel of the FBI field office also reportedly determined at that time that the pride flag didn’t violate any FBI policy or regulation. Will those folks all be fired as well?

But then Kash Patel showed up and fired Maltinsky anyway, because some assholes are simply irrepressible. The government is of course contesting everything in Maltinsky’s lawsuit claiming discrimination and retaliation, seeking to deny his request for reinstatement or back pay. This week, Maltinsky asked a federal judge in Washington D.C. to reject the Trump administration’s attempts to dismiss portions of the lawsuit, and begin discovery in the immediate future. As his attorneys succinctly observed: “This case must head to discovery.”

If the case progresses, meanwhile, the government is expected to argue, in absurd fashion, that firing Maltinsky over the pride flag on his desk has nothing to do with the fact that Maltinsky is gay, because “the flag and placard did not expressly identify his sexual orientation,” as if it would simply have a sign reading GAY MAN, and an arrow pointing at him. They’re also arguing that despite the fact that Maltinsky was literally awarded the pride flag by the agency in commendation of his work supporting LGBTQ+ employees, that this award and his work with other gay employees was “too far removed” (being primarily a few years earlier) to establish that his firing was retaliation for his past efforts in the FBI Bureau Equality Committee. Maltinsky’s lawyers have naturally shot back pointing out the absurdity of the government attempting to pretend it wasn’t aware of its gay FBI agent who was given the gift of a pride flag by that very same agency.

“When an employer fires a Jew for wearing a Star of David necklace, or a person of French origin for displaying the tricolor flag, the act betrays hostility toward the employee’s protected characteristic,” wrote Maltinsky’s attorneys in a filing. “So too, when Defendants targeted Maltinsky for displaying a pride flag.”

A trainee for an FBI special agent position who alleges he was “singled out” and fired in October for displaying a pride flag on his work desk in a Los Angeles office is asking a federal judge to send his lawsuit against Director Kash Patel to discovery at the court’s “earliest convenience.”

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— Brown Sugar Babe RN MSN (@cas7217.bsky.social) 11:56 AM · Jul 16, 2026

Which is all to say: Yeah, obviously! Kash Patel’s note firing the guy literally admits that he was fired over the pride flag and nothing else. It’s difficult to imagine how any judge or jury could possibly conclude anything other than that Maltinsky–a man who spent 16 years serving the bureau, his entire adult life–was being directly targeted by his new, far-right bosses for any reason other than the fact that he was a gay man supporting other gay people. It’s the most open-and-shut discrimination case imaginable.

“Defendants freely admitted—in writing—that they fired Maltinsky because he displayed that flag,” wrote Maltinsky’s lawyers. “That is more than enough to make it plausible that Defendants fired Maltinsky because of the protected activity the flag commemorated, and of which they disapprove.”

Even if Maltinsky does triumph in his litigation, meanwhile, the agency that fired him achieved its own ends in largely silencing opposition from within the organization. As he told The Advocate in an interview, his firing alone led to a purge within the FBI of any displays that could be seen as grounds for similar firing: “People immediately started scouring their desks of Pride flags, anything personal in nature, even.”

Guess what was allowed to stay, meanwhile? Pretty much … everything else? Gadsen flags, Punisher skull merchandise and “thin blue line” flags reportedly still fly in the offices, according to Maltinsky’s complaint. None of those, clearly, constituted “political signage.” Being political is only a problem if you’re also gay while doing it.