On Friday, September 25, 2026, the head of counterterrorism at the FBI's Washington Field Office, Special Agent in Charge Michael Burgwald, and his deputy, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Courtland Rae, were demoted and sent to FBI headquarters, Bloomberg Law reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Their division “is responsible for Middle East threats.” The removals came over their handling of allegedly harassing phone messages left for Katie Miller, a conservative podcaster and the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. They were not fired.
Why is disputed, and all three news accounts rest on anonymous sources. Bloomberg Law reported that the order from Darren Cox, who runs the Washington Field Office, “stemmed from frustration shared by the Miller family that the field office was moving slowly,” and that several of its sources said FBI Director Kash Patel was also displeased with the office's progress. CNN reported that the field office team had found the calls “did not meet the threshold required for an FBI investigation, and no nexus to terrorism was identified.” MS NOW reported that the two agents “questioned the legality and legitimacy of the request.” A former FBI official told MS NOW, “Harassing phone calls aren't even in the ballpark of terrorism unless an actual terrorist is doing the dialing.”
The FBI and the White House gave on-the-record versions that do not fully match. Cox: “Director Patel did not order this decision.” He added, “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.” FBI co-deputy director Christopher Raia said the decisions “were based on a number of factors not reflected in the reporting.” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis: “Senior leadership at the FBI determined they were stifling investigations into very serious threats and made a unilateral decision to remove them.” She said the Millers had faced “an elaborate, well-documented stalking, doxing and threat campaign targeting the Millers' residence.”
Former officials told Bloomberg Law the reassignments are “a loss of decades of highly regarded counterterrorism experience during the war with Iran.” Rae supervised the FBI's response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and both men worked on the January 6 investigation, according to Bloomberg Law and MS NOW. CNN reported a similar episode last year, when the Millers were angered by career agents who pushed back on using bureau resources to investigate flyers critical of Stephen Miller. For Patel's earlier removals, see Patel Fires About a Dozen FBI Staff From the Trump Documents Case After Revealing That Smith's Team Subpoenaed His Phone Records.