Stephen Miller Addressed FBI Counterterrorism Agents Days Before His Wife's Alleged Stalker Was Charged
Former Justice Department officials call the White House adviser's appearance at FBI headquarters unusual, given his role as an alleged victim and potential witness in the case.
White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller spoke at a training conference for counterterrorism agents at FBI headquarters just over a week ago, days before prosecutors charged a man with making disturbing calls and texts to Miller's wife, Katie, multiple sources told CBS News.
Former Justice Department officials called the visit unusual, given the long-standing norm of insulating federal criminal investigations from political officials. The administration and the FBI have said Miller's visit was appropriate, citing his role at the White House and the administration's focus on cracking down on political violence.
Miller told the agents that President Trump's initiative to counter domestic terrorism is personal to him, citing the 2025 assassination of his friend, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, according to a source briefed on the meeting and a senior FBI official. He urged federal agents to be more proactive in threat cases and told them that no case is too small, whether the threats target a congressman, a spouse, friends, loved ones or a speaker on a college campus, the senior FBI official said. The official said his remarks reflect a broader push by federal law enforcement to get ahead of mass-casualty events by stepping up investigations into threats and harassment, which can be precursors to violence.
The training took place on a Tuesday and was attended by FBI assistant special agents in charge who specialize in counterterrorism, as well as officials from IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the Secret Service, sources said.
A White House spokesperson said Miller's presence was appropriate given his role and said he is tasked with carrying out the president's executive order to "investigate, disrupt, and dismantle all stages of organized political violence and domestic terrorism." An FBI spokesperson called the order "a critical directive for this FBI's work" and said "Stephen Miller has been a valued partner in this work."
Justice Department officials told CBS News that his participation was not customary and runs against the post-Watergate norms that kept White House officials away from criminal investigations. They also noted that Miller is an alleged victim and potential witness in the Boston-area cyberstalking case. Two days after his presentation, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston charged John A. Proia with one count of cyberstalking Katie Miller and her family. Proia has pleaded not guilty.
The episode is complicated by another development. In the days before Miller's appearance, the two most senior counterterrorism agents in the FBI's Washington Field Office were reassigned by the office's leader, Darren Cox, after the Miller family complained that the agents were not moving quickly enough on the investigation into the man in Massachusetts, sources told CBS News. White House officials said the Millers did not speak directly to the agents and did not ask for the change. A White House spokesperson said senior FBI leadership decided the agents were "stifling investigations into very serious threats and made a unilateral decision to remove them."
Sources also said the Millers have repeatedly asked the Washington Field Office to investigate political activists and others they say have threatened or harassed them, and that Stephen Miller once asked the bureau to let agents go undercover in his Virginia neighborhood's activist group. "Politically well-connected people who are related to victims do not have a right to jawbone FBI supervisors to do what they want them to do," said Jeffrey Breinholt, a longtime former counterterrorism prosecutor at the Justice Department.
