A whistleblower says the FBI opened at least one investigation of protesters after President Trump didn't like what he saw in a TikTok video. Jill Fields, a former senior FBI intelligence analyst in Los Angeles, alleges in a complaint to the Senate Judiciary Committee that early in Trump's 2025 immigration crackdown, the bureau opened preliminary probes into anti-ICE protesters in Southern California at the direction of the White House, CNN reports. In one case, she says analysts were told to investigate two to four people seen in a TikTok video using bullhorns to alert neighbors to immigration agents in Alhambra—despite no evidence of a crime and bureau rules against targeting speech alone.
Lawyers representing Fields told senators that the investigations were opened after FBI Director Kash Patel told bureau officials that Trump "was angry about the incident, and he wanted those protesters investigated and arrested." Fields also says Emil Bove, who was acting deputy attorney general at the time, ordered investigations of protests outside a federal building in Los Angeles, despite the fact that the protests were protected free speech. NBC News reports. She says many directives came in face-to-face meetings because officials didn't want to put things in writing.
Fields says that after she objected, she was sidelined at the agency and ended up resigning. The letter to senators says the apparent retaliation "signaled to other employees that raising constitutional or legal...
After a weekend of demonstrations culminated in France’s most violent night of unrest, the mood in the country remained tense on Monday (October 19) as the government announced partial curfews in ...