Two FBI counterterrorism agents raise legal questions - shortly afterward they are demoted

Two experienced FBI counterterrorism supervisors in Washington have been removed from their positions and demoted. Michael Burgwald headed counterterrorism at the FBI's Washington field office, and Courtland Rae was his deputy. Both were reassigned to headquarters. The reason, according to several people familiar with the matter, centers on an investigation into harassing phone calls directed at Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. Katie Miller herself works as a right-wing conservative podcaster.

Burgwald and Rae have decades of national security experience. Burgwald graduated from West Point and received an award in 2016 for his work on a terrorism case. Rae worked on the Boston Marathon bombing case. Both were also involved in the investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. These are the very 2 men who are now said to have been removed from their leadership positions after raising doubts about whether the requested assignment even fell within the scope of counterterrorism. According to several current and former FBI officials, the request was unusual. The Washington counterterrorism division was asked to conduct a threat assessment on a person believed to have been making harassing phone calls to Katie Miller. A former FBI official briefed on the matter reportedly said that harassing phone calls were nowhere near a terrorism case unless an actual terrorist was making the calls. Inside the bureau, the request was reportedly met with corresponding resistance.

According to the sources, Burgwald had already drawn the displeasure of FBI Director Kash Patel. The 2 had reportedly clashed several times. The dispute over the Miller investigation was then said to have been the point where things tipped. Burgwald and Rae reportedly questioned the legality and legitimacy of the assignment. Stephen Miller and Patel were reportedly angered by that. Darren Cox, head of the FBI's Washington field office, then ordered the 2 men removed from their positions, according to the sources.

Cox disputes that Patel made the decision. “Director Patel did not order this decision,” he said in a statement. It had been solely a personnel decision made by the Washington field office based on its ongoing assessment of operational needs. Any suggestion otherwise was false. The official explanation therefore stands against the accounts of those who describe the internal sequence of events differently. Burgwald and Rae did not lose their jobs at the FBI, but they did lose their leadership positions. They were demoted and reassigned to headquarters. The White House did not initially respond to a request for comment on the matter. The demotions had already been reported publicly.

The case reaches beyond 2 personnel decisions. It comes at a time when experienced counterterrorism specialists are being pushed out of the FBI or moved to the sidelines. Current and former officials are increasingly questioning whether this is weakening the bureau's ability to prevent terrorism. Other experienced investigators reportedly retired earlier than planned, saying they could no longer work at an FBI they believed had become politicized.

The current case does not come out of nowhere for us. Back in September 2025, we published an internal FBI memo from then-acting Director Brian Driscoll. It stated that the Justice Department had ordered a review of all FBI employees who had been involved in the January 6, 2021 investigations, including their immediate supervisors. Driscoll himself was on that list. A few days later, Driscoll, Steve Jensen and Spencer Evans sued the bureau after being fired. In the 65-page lawsuit, Kash Patel is quoted as saying he had been forced to bow to pressure from the White House and the Justice Department because they were determined to remove every agent who had been involved in investigations of Donald Trump. “The FBI tried to put the president in jail, and he hasn't forgotten that,” Patel reportedly said at the time. One year later, 2 experienced counterterrorism agents have once again lost their leadership positions after, according to several sources, questioning the legality of an assignment involving the wife of one of the most powerful men in the White House. The earlier case makes the new one more serious, not less.

Read also our article: Three Fired FBI Agents Sue Patel – and Paint a Picture of Political Pressure from the White House

That also leaves a sober question hanging in the air, one that can become deeply uncomfortable for a security agency: What happens to professional dissent when an assignment comes from close to the White House? Burgwald and Rae are not accused of obstructing an investigation. According to the sources, they raised questions about its legal basis and the mission of their own division. Shortly afterward, neither man was still in his previous position. The Miller family's history also belongs in the picture. Stephen Miller and Katie Miller moved out of their Arlington home last fall and into military-secured housing. The move came amid an investigation into alleged threats against the family. The security concerns were therefore by no means invented. That is precisely why the line between protection and political special treatment carries weight.

Read also our article: "Miller Hunts Families" – The New Wall of Protection and How Trump's Inner Circle Is Fleeing to Military Neighborhoods

Two agents with experience in major terrorism cases reportedly asked whether harassing phone calls against the wife of a powerful government official were really a matter for counterterrorism. Shortly afterward, their leadership positions were gone. Cox calls it a personnel decision. The sources describe a dispute over law and jurisdiction. Between the 2 lies that narrow place where an agency has to decide whether it serves the office or the power behind it.