Jill Fields says in a whistleblower complaint that White House and Justice Department officials sought investigations of anti-ICE protesters in early 2025. The FBI and Justice Department did not respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
Jill Fields, a former senior intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, says in a whistleblower complaint that Trump administration officials pressured the bureau to investigate people protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles in early 2025. Fields alleges that the directives targeted activity protected by the First Amendment and ran counter to FBI policy. She asked leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general to examine the federal response.
Fields says Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general, told the head of the Los Angeles office to open an investigation into activity outside a federal building that she considered protected speech. In a separate episode, the complaint says, the White House directed FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate a group using megaphones during immigration enforcement operations. Fields says FBI agents had already reviewed the group’s conduct and declined to open a case.
According to a letter from Fields’ attorneys, Donald Trump had watched a video of people using megaphones to warn residents about immigration enforcement, explain their legal rights and advise them not to open their doors without a judge-signed warrant. Fields says a person whose name is redacted told her an investigation would proceed because the president wanted it.
Fields alleges that the FBI’s Los Angeles office reassigned agents from active cartel cases to demonstrate action for the president during the protests. She says supervisors told staff not to put directives in writing, so many instructions were delivered in person. Fields does not know whether a formal investigation was ultimately opened because, she says, she was excluded after refusing to take part.
Fields says she consulted a senior FBI official responsible for privacy and civil liberties, who expressed concern about the investigation and later said she planned to resign. Fields also left the bureau after being told she would no longer lead three programs. She believes that decision was retaliation for protected internal disclosures.
The complaint says the conduct created a chilling effect among FBI employees and could signal that raising legal or constitutional concerns carried professional risks. Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla called Fields’ disclosure another example of the Justice Department being used against Trump’s perceived political opponents and questioned how many investigations might have followed White House pressure. NBC News reported that the FBI and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.