Attorneys appearing on behalf of the FBIAA and more than a dozen anonymous FBI employees argued to Judge Jia Cobb that she should impose a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration that bars it from disseminating the list to the public. The attorneys argued that at present, the list was not secure and could leak out of the government, jeopardizing the safety and reputation of those on it.

“If the government releases it to a third party, it loses control of that information and it could be the cause of irreparable harm,” said Margaret Donovan, an attorney representing the FBIAA, which comprises more than 14,000 active and former FBI agents.

The DOJ countered that the FBI groups had not established evidence that that scenario would occur, telling the judge the FBI groups’ concerns were “based solely on speculation.”

President Donald Trump’s DOJ appointees have vowed to review what critics have described as politically motivated efforts to pursue Jan. 6 cases aggressively during the Biden administration. The list was intended to aid in that review.

Cobb, a Biden appointee, ended the day by issuing an “administrative stay” that barred the government from releasing the list overnight and said that the parties would continue examining the possibility of a restraining order at another hearing on Friday morning.

Throughout the hearing, the FBI representatives repeatedly raised worries that the list could fall into the hands of pardoned Jan. 6 defendants or tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is overseeing an advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency and has gained, according to multiple reports, far-reaching access to computer systems across various government agencies.

“We have seen that happening in other agencies. We have seen Elon Musk working for the so-called DOGE agency release names of individuals,” Donovan said.

She alleged that the convicted Jan. 6 defendants, all of whom were granted clemency by Trump, are now on a warpath and hoping to dox and harass FBI agents who were involved in their cases.

In court papers, the FBI groups highlighted Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for helping to organize the riot. Tarrio, who was released from prison when Trump pardoned him last month, named an agent on X who he said needed to be fired and arrested. Tarrio also urged other defendants to publicize names of agents.

“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted,” Tarrio wrote. “Success is going to be retribution.”

A DOJ attorney assured Cobb that the department had no plans to release the list to the public but said that the White House had every right to access it. Cobb and the FBI groups asked the DOJ attorney if he could vow the White House would not disseminate the list to a third party, but the DOJ attorney was unable to do so by the end of the hearing.

The emergence of the list came one week ago, when acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the FBI acting director to terminate jobs of eight top executives at the bureau and hand over names of all employees who interacted with Jan. 6 cases for possible “personnel action.” The order sent shockwaves across the bureau, prompting agents to fear for their jobs.

According to court filings, the FBI acting director followed the order but provided a list of employee identification numbers rather than names as a layer of protection for the agents. A lawyer for the FBI groups said at Thursday’s hearing that there were roughly 5,000 to 6,000 employees involved in Jan. 6 cases.

Bove later clarified in a letter that “no FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner with respect to January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties.”

“The only individuals who should be concerned,” Bove said, were those who acted with a “corrupt and partisan intent.”