Whistleblower claims Trump pushed FBI to investigate LA protesters

The Trump administration directed the FBI to investigate Los Angeles protesters, violating the U.S. Constitution, a former FBI supervisor alleged in a new whistleblower report shared with ranking Senate officials, including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California).

Padilla released the disclosure report Tuesday as well as his letter to FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, demanding answers to the claims brought up in the report. The whistleblower disclosure claims that FBI officials and the president directly pushed for investigations into protesters following demonstrations in L.A. protesting the 2025 wave of mass immigration arrests.

“These allegations are deeply alarming,” Padilla wrote on social media Tuesday. “Using the FBI to target Americans for exercising their First Amendment rights directly undermines our nation’s foundational values.”

The report was sent to ranking Senate Judiciary Committee leaders by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. 

Fields references two instances of “evidenced violations of law and abuse of authority,” she claims arose following widespread protests in L.A.

The report claims that former Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal lawyer, directed the L.A. Field Office to investigate protesters who took part in demonstrations in front of federal buildings in L.A. in early 2025.

Protestors were demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which had begun to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda. 

Fields says she was instructed to open an investigation into all anti-ICE and CBP protestors who were present at federal buildings, despite the protests being protected under the First Amendment. The report also points out that investigations solely for First Amendment activity are against FBI policy.

Agents were pulled from other teams, including active cartel investigations, to form a dedicated immigration squad that Field’s direct supervisor allegedly called “a show for the president.”

The second instance Fields disclosed occurred in late February 2025. Fields claimed that the president was shown a video of protestors in Alhambra using megaphones to notify residents of nearby immigration enforcement.

The president was “angry about the incident, and he wanted those protestors investigated and arrested,” the disclosure reads.

The report claims the president instructed Patel to have the L.A. field office open an investigation, an instruction which was passed down through leadership.

Despite the protest falling under First Amendment activity and no clear evidence of a crime having been committed, field analysts were ordered to run checks on a handful of protesters in the video, according to the disclosure report.

Higher-ups opened an investigation despite analysts’ finding no criminal activity. An FBI official, whose name is redacted in the report, allegedly told Fields “the president wants this investigation.”

The report “points to a President and political appointees who continue to weaponize the justice system against perceived enemies,” Padilla said in a statement.

Fields resigned from the FBI after she brought up her concerns and removed from three programs she oversaw.

In the letter sent to Blanche and Patel, Padilla asked for the details of the L.A. investigation and asked several questions to which he requested answers by Oct. 12.

He wrote that the disclosure report raises “grave concerns about the rule of law under your leadership, the diversion of resources from ongoing criminal investigations and the testimony that you provided under oath to Congress.”