FBI Director Kash Patel/Image: AP
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the Miller family had never met or interacted with Burgwald or Rae. “Senior leadership at the FBI determined they were stifling investigations into very serious threats and made a unilateral decision to remove them,” Bis said in a statement to the outlet. FBI Director Kash Patel was also unhappy with the Washington office’s handling of the investigation.
“Director Patel did not order this decision,” Cox said in a statement posted on the FBI’s official “Rapid Response” account. Former law enforcement officials said the reassignments remove decades of counterterrorism experience from a Washington office involved in investigations of violent extremism. “The Millers did not relocate because of protests,” Bis said. “There was an elaborate, well-documented stalking, doxing and threat campaign targeting the Millers’ residence.”
“This was a personnel decision made at the Washington field office level alone based on our constant evaluation of mission needs. Any suggestion otherwise is false.