The RecordExhibit 136
Whistleblower: the White House pushed the FBI to investigate protesters its own agents found had broken no law
Alleged means: Serious, credible accusations of illegality that no court or watchdog has decided yet.
A former FBI intelligence analyst has told Congress that in early 2025 the White House and the acting deputy attorney general pushed the bureau's Los Angeles office to investigate people protesting immigration arrests, after agents had concluded the protesters' conduct was protected by the First Amendment.
What happened
The disclosure, dated Oct. 5, 2026, was filed by lawyers for Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI's Los Angeles field office, with the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, and copied to the Justice Department's inspector general and the Office of Special Counsel. It describes two episodes.
In January and February 2025, it says, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed the head of the Los Angeles office, Akil Davis, to open an investigation of people protesting ICE and Border Patrol at federal buildings, and the office opened an assessment and monitored social media for planned protests; The Hill reported that direct contact of that kind between the deputy attorney general's office and a field office is highly unusual.
Separately, after a Feb. 26, 2025 video showed residents of Alhambra, California, using megaphones to warn neighbors that immigration agents were nearby, Fields says she was told that Trump had seen it and told FBI Director Kash Patel to have the office investigate the protesters, and that Patel told senior officials the president was angry and wanted them investigated and arrested.
Agents checked two to four of the people in the video, concluded on Feb. 28 that their conduct was constitutionally protected and recommended closing the matter, and Fields says she was told the inquiry would proceed anyway because the president wanted it. She refused to manage the assessment, says analysts were pulled off drug, violent crime and organized crime cases for the protest work, and says she was stripped of her supervisory duties about a month after raising her objections and later resigned. Bove is now a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Where it stands
No court, inspector general or special counsel has examined the allegations. The disclosure asks Congress, the Office of Special Counsel and the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate. Sen. Alex Padilla of California, the subcommittee's top Democrat, released it on Oct. 6 with a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Patel asking how many demonstrations, accounts and people the FBI monitored, whether anyone was arrested or charged, and whether the White House gave instructions, with answers requested by Oct. 12; as a member of the minority he cannot compel them.
FBI rules bar investigations based solely on First Amendment activity, and the disclosure says the assessments broke those rules and the attorney general's guidelines. The allegations rest on Fields's account, which the news outlets that reported it could not independently verify.
The administration's side
The Justice Department and the FBI called the report a politically motivated attack, said they will vigorously uphold the First Amendment rights of all Americans, and said they will investigate potential federal crimes. The FBI's press office added that violence is not protected by the First Amendment. The White House did not respond to the outlets' requests for comment.
Sources
Permanent link: https://unredactedrecord.com/e/fbiprotesters/