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.
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