A former FBI agent revealed new details Tuesday about his firing under Director Kash Patel, saying he was dismissed over perceived disloyalty to President Donald Trump while caring for his wife, who was battling aggressive cancer.

“It was a nightmare,” said Walter Giardina, a veteran agent at the FBI who was among several ousted under what they called Trump’s “campaign of retribution,” speaking with the New York Times in a report published Tuesday.

He is among several who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week,

Giardina is a 1999 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and was deployed to Iraq following the United States’ 2003 invasion. He also served in Afghanistan in 2011.

In June this year, however, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) called into question Giardina’s impartiality at the FBI after allegedly being contacted by an FBI whistleblower.

Giardina was among those at the agency assigned to the Mueller probe, the investigation into whether Trump had engaged in espionage with Russia to help win the 2016 presidential election, and an assignment that painted a target on Giardina’s back.

Patel, a strong ally of Trump's, allegedly said that his agency had previously “tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,” according to the lawsuit filed by the ousted FBI agents.

The allegations against Giardina snowballed, with Grassley accusing the FBI agent of having an “animosity toward President Trump,” and in a letter to Patel, suggested he may have even destroyed records. Giardina denied the allegations, all the while caring for his wife whose health was quickly deteriorating.

Giardina’s wife ultimately succumbed to the cancer, and two days after her funeral, he aggressively defended his record at the agency in a high-stakes meeting with bureau officials.

“It was unfathomable to see my entire life, which has been focused on family and the FBI, to be torn apart in an instant,” Giardina told the New York Times.

A "secret sister" of Charlie Kirk has emerged — with an extremely different worldview to her conservative brother who was shot and killed last week.

Mary Kirk is a 29-year-old Chicago art curator whose progressive views stand in sharp opposition to her brother's conservative activism, the Daily Mail reported.

Mary's social media reveals a passionate support for Senator Bernie Sanders. In a 2016 Facebook post, she wrote, "#Tbt to when I met Bernie a year ago and had no idea who he was and now he is the light of my life," accompanied by a photo of herself with the senator.

But the Mail reported Mary wasn't always politically opposed to her brother. In 2011, she was a member of the Wheeling Young Republicans, an organization Charlie had previously led. However, by 2015, her political ideology had dramatically shifted.

Her social media activities highlight her commitment to causes her brother actively worked against. "Whitney Plantation is an inspiring example of what slavery education should look like in the US," she wrote on LinkedIn, urging followers to support the museum, the Mail reported. That stands in direct contrast to Charlie Kirk's criticisms of what he called "Black-centered education."

Mary has also advocated for museum funding and cultural institutions that were targeted during the Trump administration. She shared calls to action from the American Alliance of Museums, encouraging followers to protect funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Despite their political differences, close friends reportedly suggest that the Kirk family maintained a harmonious relationship, the Mail reported. Their parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, are described as non-political, with Robert being an architect and Kathryn a mental health counselor.

Charlie Kirk's recent death during his "American Comeback Tour" has sparked intense political rhetoric. While some right-wing figures have called for conflict, others have emphasized Kirk's willingness to engage in dialogue across political lines.

Mary Kirk has largely avoided the public spotlight, maintaining her progressive activism quietly while her brother became a prominent conservative figure, according to the Mail's report.

A former high-ranking FBI official criticized President Donald Trump's choice to lead the bureau Monday — and slammed his handling of the Charlie Kirk killing.

The 22-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting was arrested after a family member turned him in, and FBI Director Kash Patel has been revealing evidence in the case on Fox News as he defends the investigation. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told "CNN This Morning" that his approach stands out as unusual.

"I guess preliminarily what stands out to me is how much we know at this point," McCabe said. "It's really remarkable in the middle of an ongoing investigation of such momentous importance for the country. It's odd and unconventional that there have been this many releases of information, particularly from the FBI director, but essentially the basics of this case are very, very solid."

"You have an individual who was pretty clearly identified on fleeing the scene from those videos that we've all seen," he added. "You've got the murder weapon has been recovered. The towel that the murder weapon was wrapped in and a screwdriver found with the murder weapon. Both bear the DNA of the subject in custody, and now, of course, we've learned of this message that he apparently delivered in this very short period of time after being confronted by his family and right before being brought to law enforcement, he apparently got on his computer and sent a message to his friends on the application Discord and sent a message that essentially confesses to the crime. So the case seems very, very strong at this point."

But despite the solidity of the evidence, McCabe said Patel was making blunders that could weaken the case at trial.

"There shouldn't be a real difference between how [Attorney General] Pam Bondi and Kash Patel are handling those questions," he said. "I think Pam Bondi is doing it the right way. The difference in what we're seeing here from what we normally experience in mass shootings is that this case has to go to a prosecution. We have a subject in custody. The state of Utah, and possibly later the federal government, are preparing to bring cases to trial.

"So in that situation, you don't want to expose evidence outside of the context of the evidence you need to put forth in the indictment to receive the indictment. Now, we're going to see later today when he is officially charged in court, what evidence the prosecutors decide to reveal in the course of that legal filing. But typically you never discuss the evidence. You don't want to put anything in jeopardy."

"You don't want to give the defense a preview of your evidence before the trial, and you don't want to put this person on trial in the public," McCabe added. "It's a violation of their due process rights and can really cause you problems down the road. In a typical mass shooting case where the mass shooter commits suicide or is killed by law enforcement in or around the shooting, you don't have those same concerns because obviously there's no prosecution to follow."

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