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Whistleblower alleges Trump ordered FBI to investigate protesters in LA over immigration crackdown
Donald Trump ordered the FBI to investigate protesters in Los Angeles who were demonstrating against the president’s immigration crackdown, according to a whistleblower complaint that was submitted to the Senate judiciary committee.
Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat who represents California and serves on the committee, said his office had received a copy of the complaint.
“These allegations are deeply alarming,” Padilla, who also serves as the top Democrat on the border security and immigration subcommittee, said in a statement. “Using the FBI to target Americans for exercising their first amendment rights directly undermines our nation’s foundational values. I won’t rest until we get answers.”
NBC first reported on the allegations after viewing a copy of the complaint, which identifies the whistleblower as Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, who made the complaint following the federal response to anti-ICE demonstrations around the city’s federal buildings, and in residential area, early last year. Fields ultimately resigned from the bureau last year.
According to NBC, Fields alleges that Emil Bove, then the acting deputy attorney general, told the head of the field office to open an investigation into activities outside the federal building even though Fields says the activities were protected free speech. Fields also says the White House gave a directive to FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate a group of protesters using megaphones during immigration enforcement operations after agents had initially declined to open an investigation.
Per NBC, Fields also claims that agents were taken agents based in Los Angeles were taken off active cartel cases to carry out the White House’s requests.
Key events
Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, said the Pentagon denied him access to a US military base during a visit to the Middle East. Murphy had intended to visit the Al Udeid airbase, which has been repeatedly attacked during the US war in Iran.
“This trip confirmed for me that there is an active, unprecedented, unconstitutional effort underway to hide the costs of this war and the implications of this war from Congress and the American people,” Murphy told reporters during a stop in Saudi Arabia.
A senior Pentagon official told the Associated Press that Murphy’s office had been informed that it would not receive support to visit the base, per Pete Hegseth’s March directive restricting travel to the area.
“I’ve never encountered anything like this in my time in the Senate and it’s part of a deliberate campaign of obfuscation that my Republican colleagues in Congress should demand an end to,” Murphy said.
Speaking at a Maryland shipyard, Donald Trump said the biggest problem for him in negotiating with Iran is that no one knows who is running the country.
“Their second group of leaders are gone, and the biggest problem I have is nobody knows who the hell is running the country,” Trump said.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, spoke to the United Nations last month, and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has met with the country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.
Donald Trump has announced a massive new shipyard, which will be funded by a combination of federal and private dollars, at Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point.
“Today we’re officially launching the construction of the largest new shipyard in the United States,” Trump said. “This is since World War II there’s been nothing like we’re doing today.”
Anduril Industries plans to invest $3.7bn in the shipyard, Trump said. The shipyard will be called Arsenal-2, and will build “the next generation of American submarines, including autonomous subs, torpedo tubes and critical components” for Virgina-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, the president said.
The US Navy will contribute an additional $2.9bn to the project.
Trump thanked his personal friend, Anduril Industries owner Palmer Luckey, for making the project happen.
Donald Trump has just arrived at Sparrows Point, Maryland, where he is addressing a crowd at a submarine shipyard.
According to the Baltimore Banner – a local outlet – Anduril Industries, a defense technology manufacturer is expected to make an announcement about the company’s future at the facility.
A reminder that Anduril Industries is owned by Palmer Luckey, a top Trump donor. The Guardian has previously reported that Luckey’s company has received billions in contracts from the administration for drones, autonomous jet fighters and space-based interceptors.
As Trump headed to Baltimore County, Maryland, he briefly spoke with reporters at the White House. However, the president didn’t give a clear answer when asked about whether he plans to reimburse the federal government for the two pro-Trump, taxpayer-funded advertisements which drew sustained backlash.
On Monday, Trump said that he would now pay for the spots using money from his aligned Super Pac, Maga Inc.
“The ads were really good. They were promotion for the country, done by many presidents before, so we’ll decide,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Donald Trump ordered the FBI to investigate protesters in Los Angeles who were demonstrating against the president’s immigration crackdown, according to a whistleblower complaint that was submitted to the Senate judiciary committee. Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat who represents California and serves on the committee, said his office had received a copy of the complaint. “These allegations are deeply alarming,” Padilla, who also serves as the top Democrat on the border security and immigration subcommittee, said in a statement. Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, made the complaint following the federal response to anti-ICE demonstrations around the city’s federal buildings, and in residential area, early last year. More here
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A Republican candidate in San Diego has criticized Donald Trump after the US president suggested Iran could “take out” the city or Los Angeles. Jim Desmond, who is standing in a competitive San Diego based seat in the House of Representatives, said that “no American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage”. Desmond is set to face Marni Von Wilpert, a lawyer and member of San Diego’s city council, for the state’s 48th congressional district – which was redrawn in response to Proposition 50. More here
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Desmond joined a string of prominent Democrats who called out the comments. Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor, said today he wasn’t surprised by the president’s comments, but criticized Republican leaders in the state for not strongly condemning the remarks.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio urged Moscow on Tuesday to release more details about the case of a lab technician in Siberia, who died after a suspected case of pneumonic plague. Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account. “I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Rubio told reporters in Reykjavik. “We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour.”
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Lawyers for the former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who was charged and dismissed over damage to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, are urging two government watchdogs to examine what they say was a flawed investigation. Hearn’s lawyers said in a letter to the inspectors general for the departments of Justice and Interior that watchdog investigations were needed “to determine what happened inside their agencies that led to the shocking and indefensible treatment” of their client.
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has been on the campaign trail in recent days, stumping for lawmakers and candidates in competitive districts, as his party tries to retain control of the lower chamber of Congress in this year’s midterms.
Today he spent time in Pennsylvania, where he’s expected to visit four battlegrounds in a purple state where incumbent Republicans are facing challenges from Democrats. A reminder that Trump flipped Pennsylvania in 2024 by fewer than two points. Now, Republicans in the state will have to answer for unpopular policies when voters head to the ballot box in November. An August poll by Franklin & Marshall College found that the president’s approval rating sits at 27% in the Keystone state.
On social media, Johnson posed with Scott Perry – the hard-right congressman – facing a tough re-election battle against moderate Democrat Janelle Stelson, a former news anchor who lost narrowly to the incumbent in 2024. Recent polls show Stelson with a slight edge over Perry – a fervent ally of Trump who maintained that the 2020 election was stolen, and in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol introduced Donald Trump to fellow election denier Jeffrey Clark, who was then a justice department official. Perry pushed for Clark’s appointment as acting attorney general to continue an effort to undermine the 2020 election results.
Rubio urges Moscow to share more information about lab technician death over suspected pneumonic plague
Luke Harding
Secretary of state Marco Rubio urged Moscow on Tuesday to release more details about the case of a lab technician in Siberia, who died after a suspected case of pneumonic plague.
Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. She died two days later on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov.
It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account.
“I think it’s incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world,” Rubio told reporters in Reykjavik. “We’re watching it very closely, hour by hour.”
Donald Trump had said on Monday that his administration was willing to offer assistance. “I hate to see them having it. We’ll help. Everybody who has that kind of a problem, we’ll always help,” he told reporters at the White House when asked what Washington was going to do about the risk of plague coming from Russia.
Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesperson, said on Tuesday that there was no sign of a wider outbreak. “All of the patients’ contacts have reportedly been identified and are being monitored for illness, and none to date have shown symptoms of illness,” he said.
Also on Truth Social today, the president made sure to weigh in on the protests in France, which have seen 250,000 students, teachers and parents demonstrate across the country for better high school conditions – from staffing to crumbling classrooms.
The protests have resulted in violent clashes with the police, with the French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, noting that at least 215 teenagers and 85 school staff had been injured since the protests began more than two weeks ago.
Trump, however, falsely claimed that the demonstrations are about “out of control mass migration”.
“This isn’t about schools,” he wrote, without providing any evidence, “this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country!”
‘You know how he acts’: Becerra unsurprised by Trump’s rally comments, scolds Republican leaders for not condemning remarks
Lauren Gambino
During a media availability after the event – a rally with Latino leaders against a voter ID ballot measure in Los Angeles – Xavier Becerra said he wasn’t surprised by the president’s comments.
“Donald Trump is a known commodity – you know how he acts,” he said.
Becerra, a Democrat who is poised to be elected the state’s next governor in November, criticized Republican leaders in the state for not strongly condemning the remarks.
Becerra added: “Life is already tough enough in California. You don’t need to have a president pile on and say … ‘If you get bombed, who cares.’”
California officials react to Trump’s comments saying Iran could ‘take out’ LA or San Diego
Lauren Gambino
California leaders are furious at Trump over his remarks at a Nebraska campaign rally.
“I don’t think he was joking,” said state senator Mark González, a Democrat representing downtown LA and other parts of the city.
Trump is “very intentional about his comments, and especially about targeting Los Angeles,” González said at a campaign event in Koreatown for Xavier Becerra, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. “He’s been targeting Los Angeles and Southern California since his presidency started on Day One, treating it like a political playground. When you think about ICE, when you think about the policies that he’s carried out or the things that he has said.”
“Using Los Angeles as your collateral damage is un-American. It’s unpatriotic and it’s disgusting,” he said.
Congressman Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat and the House caucus chair, said the president was “just trying to overcompensate for this reckless and irresponsible war” that he started without congressional authorization.
“He might think it’s a joke, but to his supporters, he’s not joking, right?” Aguilar said at the Becerra event. “He wasn’t joking when he told folks to overrun the Capitol either. It’s incredibly dangerous rhetoric. You shouldn’t be making any jokes about giving up California, giving up Los Angeles and San Diego.”
Media ‘freakout’ over Trump rally comments is ‘not rooted in reality’, says White House communications director
In a post shared to X, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said that the outrage to Donald Trump’s rally comments are “not rooted in reality”.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped,” Cheung posted.
“America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money”, he concluded.
At a rally in Nebraska on Monday, the president said that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, and it would be “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe”.
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