Federal Bureau of Investigation
agency
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the domestic intelligence and federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. It investigates federal crimes, national security threats, and conducts intelligence operations within the United States. Under Director Kash Patel, the Bureau became subject to controversy over investigations into political opponents and critics of the administration.
Entries involving this actor (14)
FBI raids Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a voter-registration group
On June 11, 2026, FBI agents raided the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a nonprofit that runs statewide voter-registration programs, and fanned out across Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati to question current and former staff, serve subpoenas, and seize electronic devices. A board member estimated that more than 100 agents were involved and said investigators alleged voter fraud while presenting no evidence of wrongdoing. The raids came roughly five months before the 2026 midterm elections and drew condemnation from Ohio Democrats and democracy advocates as an attempt to intimidate voter-registration work.
DOJ charges eight U-Michigan divestment activists with up-to-20-year federal felonies over a vandalism-and-threats campaign, a year after state charges against the movement were dropped
On June 10, 2026, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Michigan unsealed a 63-page indictment charging eight pro-Palestinian activists tied to the University of Michigan divestment movement with conspiracy to transmit a threat, conspiracy to tamper with a witness, and destruction of property to prevent seizure — felonies carrying five to twenty years. The charges, announced alongside FBI raids in Ypsilanti, describe a 2024–2025 intimidation campaign: vandalism and graffiti at the homes of the U-M provost and regents, the placement of fake bloody corpses on a board member's lawn, and the defacing of the Jewish Federation of Detroit. The case followed the collapse of an earlier, separate state prosecution: charges Attorney General Dana Nessel brought against U-M encampment protesters in 2024 were all dropped by May 2025. Civil-rights groups say the federal charges treat political advocacy as terrorism and blur protected speech with criminal conduct.
FBI fires five analysts who worked on withdrawn 2023 'Richmond memo'
On June 5, 2026, the FBI fired five employees — four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst — who were involved in creating the withdrawn 2023 "Richmond memo" on "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" ideology, a document long targeted by President Trump's allies. An internal FBI review and a DOJ inspector general review had both previously found no malicious intent and no discriminatory conduct, and the employees had already been admonished, with corrective process changes adopted. Their lawyer called the firings "manifestly unjust, completely unsupported by the facts."
FBI omitted Patel's Navy-arranged 'VIP snorkel' at USS Arizona from public trip account
The Associated Press reported, based on government emails obtained through a public records request, that the FBI's public news releases about Director Kash Patel's August 2025 official trip to Australia and New Zealand omitted both a two-day personal stop in Hawaii on the return leg and a Navy-coordinated "VIP Snorkel" around the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor — a sunken battleship and military cemetery normally closed to recreational diving. Flight-tracking data showed the FBI Gulfstream G550 used by the director remained on Hawaii for two nights during the second stay before continuing on to Patel's adopted hometown of Las Vegas. A Navy spokesperson confirmed the outing but said the service could not determine who initiated it.
FBI opens criminal leak probe targeting the sources behind The Atlantic's reporting on Kash Patel
In early May 2026, MS NOW reported — with corroboration from PBS NewsHour, TheWrap, Poynter and Democracy Now — that the FBI had opened a criminal "insider threat" investigation into the sourcing behind Atlantic reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick's story documenting FBI Director Kash Patel's excessive drinking and erratic conduct. The probe is highly unusual: it does not stem from any disclosure of classified information and instead targets leaks to a journalist, a posture in which reporters have historically been treated only as witnesses. FBI agents assigned to the matter reportedly objected that they were not supposed to pursue it, and the bureau publicly denied the investigation.
FBI opened inquiry into NYT reporter Elizabeth Williamson over her story on Director Patel's girlfriend
The New York Times reported on April 22, 2026, that FBI agents searched bureau databases for information on Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson and recommended opening a preliminary investigation into whether her February 28 reporting on FBI Director Kash Patel's decision to provide his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins with round-the-clock SWAT-team security amounted to federal stalking. Justice Department officials ended the inquiry after determining there was no legal basis to proceed and over concerns it was retaliatory. The FBI denied that Williamson was "personally investigated" but confirmed agents had queried databases and interviewed Wilkins about her, framing the work as victim-interview activity tied to a separate death-threat case.
Deputy AG Blanche boasts every DOJ and FBI employee who investigated Trump is gone
At a CPAC fireside chat on March 26, 2026, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche declared that every Justice Department and FBI employee who worked on the criminal investigations into President Trump had been fired, resigned, or taken early retirement — "not a single man or woman" remained — putting the DOJ figure at "over 200." His public confirmation marked the completion of a systematic purge of the career personnel who had investigated the president, with termination letters citing employees' prosecution work as the reason they could not be "trusted."
FBI obtains Arizona Senate's 2020 Maricopa election audit records via grand-jury subpoena
In early March 2026 the FBI served the Arizona Senate a federal grand-jury subpoena for digital records from the chamber's discredited 2021 "audit" of Maricopa County's 2020 presidential election; Senate President Warren Petersen, a Republican, disclosed on March 9 that he had received and complied with it. The 2021 review — run by the Trump-allied firm Cyber Ninjas — had itself confirmed that Joe Biden won the county. State election officials condemned the subpoena as part of a federal campaign to relitigate an election that President Trump lost.
FBI fires about 10 employees who worked on Trump's Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case
Around February 25, 2026, the FBI dismissed roughly 10 employees who had worked on the criminal investigation into President Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The firings came hours after FBI Director Kash Patel publicly characterized the inquiry — under which his and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles's phone records had been subpoenaed — as Biden-era overreach, and followed reporting that those subpoenas had surfaced. The bureau dismissed additional personnel the next day, bringing the total to roughly a dozen.
DOJ withheld and removed Epstein-file records tied to a Trump sexual-abuse allegation
An NPR investigation published February 24, 2026 found that the Justice Department's public Epstein-files database was missing dozens of pages of FBI records connected to a woman's allegation that Donald Trump sexually abused her as a minor in the early 1980s. NPR reported that roughly 53 pages of interview notes were withheld or removed — some briefly taken offline and not fully restored — while other Epstein materials remained public. The DOJ said unpublished records were privileged, duplicative, or under review, and House Democrats and the Republican committee chair each announced investigations into the omissions.
FBI raids Fulton County, Georgia election office to seize 2020 ballots; DNI Gabbard joins
On January 28, 2026, FBI agents executed a federal search warrant at the Fulton County, Georgia election office in Union City, seizing the physical 2020 presidential-election ballots, ballot images, tabulator tapes, and voter rolls of the county Donald Trump falsely blames for his narrow Georgia loss. The warrant followed a December 2025 Justice Department lawsuit demanding the records; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — who has no domestic law-enforcement authority — joined the raid, ran a parallel election-fraud inquiry, and arranged a call for Trump to thank the agents. County officials said the seizure left them unable to vouch for the chain of custody of the 2020 records.
FBI opens criminal probe of Minneapolis anti-ICE activists' Signal chats
On Monday, January 26, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau had opened a criminal investigation into encrypted Signal group chats used by Minneapolis anti-ICE activists to share descriptions and license plates of suspected immigration-enforcement vehicles. Patel disclosed the probe in an interview with conservative commentator Benny Johnson, saying it was prompted by a viral X thread from influencer Cam Higby, who claimed to have "infiltrated" the chats, and that the FBI was examining whether the activity crossed legal thresholds such as "doxxing" agents. Free-speech advocates noted that observing and documenting on-duty law enforcement is generally lawful and warned the investigation could chill protected organizing.
DOJ and FBI arrest anti-ICE church-protest organizers under FACE Act and conspiracy statute
On January 22, 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel announced federal charges against Minneapolis civil-rights organizer Nekima Levy Armstrong, St. Paul school-board member Chauntyll Allen, and others over a January 18 anti-ICE demonstration inside Cities Church in St. Paul, where one pastor also directs the local ICE field office. The activists were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and 18 U.S.C. § 241 (conspiracy against rights); Levy Armstrong was processed and released the same day after a federal magistrate found insufficient evidence to detain her. These were the first arrests in a prosecution that a February 27 superseding indictment would expand to 39 defendants.
Trump directed U.S. forces to seize oil tanker Skipper off Venezuela, opening blockade campaign without congressional authorization
On December 10, 2025, U.S. forces seized the crude-oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela in a pre-dawn operation launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford, boarding the vessel with Coast Guard and Marine personnel under a DOJ civil-forfeiture warrant. President Trump announced the seizure at a White House event, declaring the U.S. would keep the roughly 1–2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude on board. The action — the first vessel seizure of a broader oil-blockade campaign — was carried out without congressional authorization; Venezuela condemned it as "an act of international piracy."