FBI Reportedly Reassigns Two Counterterror Chiefs Over Katie Miller Harassment Case

Adriana Stone 0 2 min read

The FBI has reportedly reassigned two veteran counterterrorism supervisors after their team determined that harassing calls received by Katie Miller, the wife of senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, did not meet the bureau’s standard for a full investigation.

Michael Burgwald, the special agent in charge of counterterrorism at the Washington Field Office, and his deputy, Courtland Rae, were removed from those positions Friday and sent to FBI headquarters, according to the report.

Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn first reported the personnel move in a post on X. His report said the FBI removed the two leaders amid frustration from Stephen and Katie Miller over the lack of progress in examining allegedly threatening calls Katie received from unknown numbers.

Anonymous sources told CNN that the Washington field team reviewed the calls and found no terrorism nexus. The sources said investigators concluded the conduct did not clear the FBI’s threshold for a full investigation.

The sources said that finding did not sit well with bureau leadership. MS NOW reported that Burgwald and Rae questioned the legality of a threat-assessment request targeting a person believed to be making the calls. The same report said Stephen Miller and FBI Director Kash Patel were unhappy with the pace of the matter.

But the FBI’s Washington chief, Darren Cox, rejected the suggestion that Patel personally ordered the reassignment.

“Director Patel did not order this decision. 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.”

Penn later posted the FBI statement as an update. That account places the decision inside the Washington field office and says it was based on the bureau’s assessment of mission needs.

The White House offered a sharply different explanation. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Bloomberg that Stephen and Katie Miller had never met Burgwald or Rae. She said senior FBI leadership believed the two officials were blocking investigations into serious threats.

“Senior leadership at the FBI determined they were stifling investigations into very serious threats and made a unilateral decision to remove them.”

Those competing accounts leave the central dispute clear. One account says the supervisors were reassigned as part of a personnel decision made at the field-office level. The other says senior FBI leadership removed them because they were holding back an investigation involving threats against the Millers.

The report also points to earlier tensions surrounding the family’s security concerns. Last year, flyers attacking Stephen Miller appeared in the couple’s neighborhood. After that, they pushed for a stronger response and later moved with their children into military housing.

The latest controversy now centers on whether the FBI handled Katie Miller’s calls appropriately, and whether the bureau’s investigative threshold was applied consistently. The public statements from Cox and Bis present two very different versions of how Burgwald and Rae lost their counterterrorism posts.

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