Attorney General Pamela Bondi is facing a new legal firestorm after a longtime Justice Department official filed a lawsuit accusing her and the U.S. government of illegally firing him following a covert “honeypot” sting orchestrated by right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe.

The suit, filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., marks the latest escalation in a broader pattern of Trump administration crackdowns on career federal employees. But this one carries a twist ripped straight from a political thriller: a senior DOJ manager says he was secretly recorded during a Hinge date by an undercover operative posing as a potential romantic partner—and that the edited footage was then used to destroy his career.

Joseph Schnitt, who spent more than two decades at DOJ and most recently served as acting deputy chief of the Special Operations Unit, alleges he was wrongfully terminated on September 5, 2025, by Bondi herself, with no due process and no opportunity to defend himself. Schnitt’s unit, among its many high-security responsibilities, oversees the Federal Witness Security Program—making his sudden dismissal even more extraordinary.

At the center of the lawsuit is a sting orchestrated by O’Keefe Media Group. O’Keefe, the conservative activist known for years of heavily edited undercover “exposés,” dispatched an operative using the alias “Skylar” to lure Schnitt into what he believed would be a lunch date. According to the court filing, “Skylar” later turned out to be Dominique Phillips, an operative previously tied to Turning Point USA.

O’Keefe’s resulting video presented the DOJ official as revealing insider knowledge about how the department purportedly intended to handle the release of Jeffrey Epstein–related files—specifically, that it might redact Republican names but leave Democratic ones visible. The claims went viral before federal officials had even confirmed basic context about the footage.

But Schnitt says the sting was pure fabrication. In his 23-page filing, he argues that he repeatedly told the undercover operative that he had no internal information and was merely offering personal speculation based on publicly available reporting. His lawsuit characterizes the encounter as a casual lunchtime conversation, outside work hours, on a subject widely discussed in Washington: the politically radioactive trove of Epstein documents.

The complaint paints a picture of a DOJ leadership eager to purge civil servants perceived as insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump—even when the supposed “offense” consisted of private political chatter on a date. Schnitt says Bondi’s one-page termination memo cited only Article II authority and labeled his remarks “publicly inappropriate” and “detrimental to the interests of the Department,” but offered no chance to contest the conclusion.

Adding to the drama, DOJ itself initially posted what it claimed to be Schnitt’s internal explanation to social media in an effort to distance the department from him—something it later apologized for. Schnitt’s lawsuit says the move represented a clear violation of the Privacy Act, arguing that DOJ unlawfully pulled and publicly disseminated records from his system-of-records file.

“Had he possessed any information about the topic through his official duties, he never would have said anything,” Schnitt’s attorney, Mark Zaid, wrote. “Like most people in the United States, it was a topic he was familiar with and seemingly normal to discuss—especially within the region of Washington, D.C.”

Schnitt’s suit alleges that Bondi’s actions violated the First and Fifth Amendments, the Administrative Procedure Act, and federal privacy law. He is seeking reinstatement to his position, full back pay, compensatory damages, and a court-ordered “name-clearing hearing.”

The filing also places the episode in the larger context of the Trump administration’s aggressive, often retaliatory use of federal power. Since Trump’s inauguration for his second term, Bondi and other senior officials have removed dozens of career employees—many of them dismissed publicly, and some in ways critics have described as intentionally humiliating.

Bondi has not addressed the lawsuit, and a DOJ spokesperson declined to comment when contacted. O’Keefe Media Group and Turning Point USA were also approached but did not respond before publication.

What Schnitt’s lawsuit makes clear is that the consequences of O’Keefe’s sting extend far beyond political embarrassment. They expose the extent to which private, deceptively obtained recordings are now playing a direct role in federal personnel decisions—and reveal just how fragile the protections for civil servants have become.

Whether the courts will side with Schnitt remains to be seen. But his case may force a far bigger conversation about the weaponization of undercover “journalism,” the politicization of the DOJ, and the fate of federal employees caught in the middle of a government increasingly run by loyalty tests, surveillance tactics, and viral misinformation.