Stephen Miller Addresses FBI Agents Amid Cyberstalking Investigation

White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller urged federal agents to pursue threats more aggressively at an FBI counterterrorism training session, days before prosecutors charged a man with cyberstalking his wife, Katie Miller. His appearance drew objections from former Justice Department officials, who said it was unusual for a political White House adviser to address agents while he was an alleged victim and potential witness in a related case.

The session at FBI headquarters focused on President Donald Trump’s directive to counter domestic terrorism and political violence. Miller told agents that the effort was personal to him because of the 2025 assassination of his friend Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, according to a source briefed on the meeting and a senior FBI official who spoke to CBS News.

Miller said agents should be proactive and that no threat case was too small, whether it involved a member of Congress, a spouse, friends, loved ones or a college speaker, the senior official told CBS News. The official said federal law enforcement was increasing its focus on threats and harassment because such crimes can precede violence.

FBI counterterrorism supervisors attended the training, along with officials from IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the Secret Service, CBS News reported. A White House spokesperson said Miller regularly works with law enforcement agencies on public safety and national security and is responsible for carrying out the president’s directive to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle all stages of organized political violence and domestic terrorism.” An FBI spokesperson called Miller “a valued partner in this work.”

Multiple former Justice Department officials told CBS News that Miller’s participation departed from longstanding norms intended to insulate criminal investigations from White House political officials. Jeffrey Breinholt, a former department counterterrorism prosecutor, said politically connected relatives of victims have no right to “jawbone FBI supervisors to do what they want them to do.”

Before the training, the two most senior counterterrorism agents in the FBI’s Washington field office were moved to other roles after the Miller family complained that an investigation into communications sent to Katie Miller was moving too slowly, sources told CBS News. Bloomberg Law first reported the personnel changes.

White House officials said the Millers neither spoke directly to the reassigned agents nor requested their removal. The office’s leader, Darren Cox, said the decision was made at the field-office level based on mission needs. FBI Deputy Director Chris Raia said other factors had not been reflected in media reports. The FBI said it pursued the cases on evidence of alleged crimes, “not because the White House ordered an investigation.”

Two days after the training, federal prosecutors in Boston charged Massachusetts resident John A. Proia with cyberstalking Katie Miller and her family. He has pleaded not guilty. Talking Points Memo reported that the case involved at least 40 calls, voicemails and text messages sent in August and September.

CBS News reported that the Millers had also pressed authorities to investigate a Virginia activist who protested outside their home and distributed flyers bearing their address. A federal magistrate judge twice rejected a search warrant in that case, and a state prosecutor later declined to bring charges, writing that the search-warrant material did not support criminal prosecution.