The resignation was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Carvalho has denied wrongdoing and did not respond to a request for comment.

In a written statement, the district said Acting Superintendent Andrés Chait will continue leading L.A. Unified while the Board of Education searches for Carvalho’s replacement.

“The Board remains steadfast in its commitment to ensuring stability, continuity, and continued progress through strong leadership,” the district said. “Our focus remains unchanged: providing every student with a high-quality education, supporting our dedicated workforce, and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve.”

Carvalho, who previously led Miami-Dade County Public Schools, arrived in Los Angeles in February 2022 with a national reputation as one of the country’s most prominent education leaders. He took over L.A. Unified only months after campuses had reopened for in-person instruction following COVID-19 closures.

During his tenure, the district posted academic gains that exceeded statewide recovery trends. English language arts scores increased by more than 5 percentage points, while math scores rose by nearly 8 points. Graduation rates also improved.

Carvalho also focused heavily on attendance and enrollment, two persistent challenges for Los Angeles and school districts across Southern California after the pandemic. He personally visited students’ homes to encourage them to return to class and backed public outreach campaigns, including billboards and bus advertisements, to promote transitional kindergarten enrollment.

In recent years, Carvalho became a visible defender of immigrant students and families as the Trump administration intensified immigration enforcement. Carvalho, who has spoken publicly about his own experience as a formerly undocumented immigrant, repeatedly emphasized that all children have the right to attend school regardless of immigration status.

Under his leadership, L.A. Unified created a 24-hour hotline, held legal rights workshops, offered free legal assistance through local nonprofits and launched a virtual academy for students whose families feared leaving home because of deportation risks.

Families in Schools, a Los Angeles-based parent advocacy organization, praised Carvalho earlier this month when it presented him with a “Courage in Leadership” award.

“At a time when immigrant students and families experienced fear and uncertainty, Superintendent Carvalho used his voice and position to affirm that all children deserve safe, welcoming schools,” the organization said. “His steadfast support for immigrant communities reflected the values that define Los Angeles and the very best of public education leadership.”

The FBI searched Carvalho’s home and office in February, shortly after the district renewed his contract. He had been on leave since then. The federal investigation appears connected to the district’s botched chatbot initiative, an artificial intelligence project that Carvalho had promoted before the contract collapsed.

Original source: CalMatters

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 Among those charged are Bryan Omar Roa, 24, of Calimesa, and Michael Alan Thomas, 32, of Pinon Hills. Also named in the case are Tycen C. Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio; Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Missouri; and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska.

 According to federal prosecutors, the group conspired to organize an attack during the UFC Freedom 250 event, allegedly planning to use drones equipped with explosives to trigger panic and force an evacuation. Investigators said the suspects then intended to position snipers to target selected individuals as crowds fled the area.

 The FBI said it became aware of the alleged threat on June 10 and launched an investigation that ultimately led to the arrests and charges.

 Court documents describe a mixture of anti-government beliefs, antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories among members of the group. Investigators said some participants expressed anger over the federal government’s handling of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and promoted claims involving secret elites controlling the government.

 “Protecting the President of the United States and the White House grounds is priority number one for the U.S. Secret Service,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said in a statement. “The landscape has changed, and as a result we have seen a dramatic rise in threats against our protectees.”

 Authorities said the investigation gained momentum after Proper’s mother contacted law enforcement with concerns about her son’s recent firearm purchases and online activity.

 Federal investigators allege members of the group communicated through encrypted messaging platforms, where discussions reportedly included targeting elected officials, business leaders and critical infrastructure such as power grids.

 According to an FBI affidavit, Thomas allegedly told investigators the group’s objective was to overthrow the U.S. government. The affidavit states Thomas subscribed to conspiracy theories claiming that powerful individuals secretly controlled government institutions and were being protected by public officials.

 Investigators also cited messages allegedly exchanged in a group chat on June 7. In one message, Thomas reportedly wrote, “$1300 gets us the drones and the charges. Yes we should all pitch in and we need it asap.”

 Federal authorities further allege that Thomas discussed meeting with Roa in Southern California for firearms and marksmanship training. Investigators said messages referenced preparing for what participants described as “gorilla style warfare.”

 During a June 13 search of Thomas’ residence, FBI agents reportedly recovered a rifle, multiple extended-capacity magazines, a pistol and approximately 180 rounds of ammunition.

 A search of Roa’s home and vehicle allegedly uncovered a rifle, handgun, ammunition, tactical gear, a two-way radio and an infrared laser aiming device. Investigators also reported finding messages on Roa’s phone linking him to conversations about the planned attack.

 According to court filings, Roa told agents he intended to attend the event as a protester but said he was unable to travel after experiencing vehicle problems.

 If convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, each defendant could face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Prosecutors said a separate charge involving conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

 President Donald Trump attended the UFC Freedom 250 event Sunday, which coincided with his 80th birthday celebration. Trump previously had a social relationship with Jeffrey Epstein years before Epstein’s criminal conduct became public. Epstein died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Secret Service, federal court filings and charging documents.

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Federal prosecutors announced Monday that Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, Calif., has been charged with one count of acting in the U.S. as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is “expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks.” The charge is punishable with up to 10 years in prison. 

“Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 – promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X. “FBI and our federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.”

Wang was elected in November 2022 to the five-member Arcadia City Council, where the mayor is selected on a rotating basis. City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement Monday that Wang, who became mayor in February, has resigned from the council.

“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” Lazzaretto said, though he clarified that the charge against Wang is for actions that ended after her swearing-in, and that, after an internal review, the council can confirm that no Arcadia City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved. 

In a statement to the Courthouse News Service, Wang’s attorney Brian Sun said that the California politician “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life,” adding: “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a track record of attempting to influence other countries’ affairs to advance its interests. It has meddled in elections, targeted overseas Chinese dissidents, and conducted information and propaganda campaigns, according to government and journalistic reports.

“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in the Monday announcement, adding that the plea agreement Wang has entered into is “the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.” 

Here’s what to know.

Who is Eileen Wang?

Eileen Wang is a Chinese immigrant. According to a 2024 report in the Los Angeles Times, Wang said she moved to Southern California from China three decades ago. Wang told the paper that her mother was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor, while her father was a physician in Sichuan province before working at the University of Southern California.

The LA Times report added that Wang, a mother of two, had been based in Arcadia for about two decades, and was mainly known for running an after-school program in the city called Little Stanford Academy before entering politics. About 59% of Arcadia’s 54,000 population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is Asian, while over 42% is ethnically Chinese.

Wang is the former fiancée of Yaoning “Mike” Sun, who was sentenced to four years in federal prison earlier this year for similarly acting as a covert agent for China, including, according to the U.S. Justice Department at the time, while he was serving as a campaign adviser for an unnamed candidate “who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.” Sun was Wang’s former campaign adviser.

Wang’s case

The charge against Wang was filed on April 1, but court filings, including the plea agreement Wang entered into, were unsealed on Monday. 

According to the unsealed plea agreement, from late 2020 through at least 2022, Wang “coordinated with U.S.-based individuals” for the purpose of “promoting pro-PRC propaganda in the United States.” 

Wang is alleged to have worked with Sun, her then-fiancé, to run a website called U.S. News Center that purported to be a news source for Chinese-Americans. According to the agreement, the two “received and executed directives” from Chinese government officials to post and circulate pro-PRC content on the site. 

The document cites examples. In June 2021, after a Chinese government official contacted Wang and other individuals via messaging platform WeChat about a pre-written essay on Xinjiang, she posted it on her site and received a “thank you” from the official. In August, Wang addressed a Chinese official’s request for edits to the article; then she sent the official a screenshot of the number of views that article had amassed. After the official replied, “Great!” Wang allegedly responded: “Thank you leader.”

In November 2021, Wang communicated with John Chen, who was sentenced in November 2024 to 20 months in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government in the U.S. and bribing a tax authority agent. Chen, according to court documents, previously attended high-level CCP functions, and had personally met Chinese President Xi Jinping. The plea agreement said that Wang asked Chen to share an article from her website, saying, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”

Wang admitted in the plea agreement that she did not notify the Attorney General that she was acting in the U.S. as an agent of China, as is required by law, and that she did not disclose that content posted on her website were based on orders from Chinese authorities.

Chinese espionage

The FBI’s website says that China employs “tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable” to them and called counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts from the Chinese government and the CCP a “grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.”

In 2025, the House Committee on Homeland Security issued a report that found more than 60 cases of Chinese espionage or repression in the U.S. since 2021, including sending sensitive U.S. military information to the Chinese government, stealing trade secrets, and carrying out transnational repression schemes including setting up undercover Chinese police stations–which it has reportedly done worldwide.

In April, the White House also accused China of stealing on an “industrial scale” the intellectual property of U.S. artificial ​intelligence labs, as both countries race to become global leaders of AI. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) said in a statement last month that China steals between $400 billion and $600 billion of IP yearly, or about $5,000 per taxpayer.

China has routinely refuted interference, espionage, and theft accusations. It also denied that it had overseas police stations that collect information on and harass Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. and elsewhere, claiming instead that it had service centers for citizens abroad.

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She had spent three daystelling a jury that the ex-movie mogul raped her, explaining why she continued a relationship with him afterward and discussing other deeply personal aspects of her life, once sobbing so hard that court ended early. Weinstein had then been convicted, in a 2020 verdict seen as a victory for the #MeToo campaign against sexual misconduct.

Yet six years later, Mann again walked to a witness stand, passing Weinstein in court on Monday, and beginning — for a third time — to give a jury her account of what happened between them.

Mann testified that she met Weinstein at an acquaintance’s engagement party around the beginning of 2013. She said he was wearing a tuxedo and “looked very jolly, so I went up and introduced myself to him.”

Mann was living in Los Angeles and trying to break into acting, she said. Later that evening, she said, she ran into Weinstein again. She testified that he boasted about his moviemaking prowess and his ability to spot talent.

“He said I was really pretty, prettier than Natalie Portman,” Mann testified, echoing her prior testimony. She added that she ended up giving Weinstein her phone number, thinking she’d make a professional — not romantic — connection.

“He was interested in my look. I thought I just got discovered,” she said.

Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone. He watched from his wheelchair at the defense table as Mann testified, occasionally leaning over to talk with his lawyer. Mann only looked at Weinstein when asked to point him out in the courtroom.

Mann’s allegation of a 2013 rape in a Manhattan hotel is again up for consideration because of a series of legal switchbacks. First, Weinstein’s 2020 conviction was overturned for reasons unrelated to her testimony. Then a jury failed to decide her part of a retrial that involved multiple accusers and allegations last year, leaving only her rape charge to be tried again.

“I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served,” Mann said in a statement at the time.

That determination now stands to be tested.

Mann could face days of questioning by prosecutors and Weinstein’s new lawyers. Like their predecessors, they have portrayed Mann as a canny wannabe who got involved with a Hollywood heavy-hitter, had entirely consensual sex with him, enjoyed his connections and invitations, then turned on him after news reports about other women’s claims about Weinstein. The 2017 reporting catalyzed the #MeToo movement.

Mann, 40, grew up in a small town in Washington state and trained as a hairstylist, but she yearned to pursue acting and moved to Los Angeles in her 20s. She was sometimes so broke that she lived in her car, but she had done some commercial and film work before she met Weinstein.

Thrilled that the Oscar-winning producer expressed interest in her career, Mann accepted invitations to get together, starting with a shopping trip for books about cinema, she testified. Within a couple months, she has said, Weinstein started making sexual overtures that she didn’t invite but accepted.

She has said she embarked, with jumbled feelings, on a relationship with the then-married mogul. Sometimes she appreciated his encouragement, other times she resented his sexual demands, and she was always cognizant of his career-making power.

In March 2013, Mann and a friend traveled to New York, and she arranged to meet Weinstein for breakfast with her pals. She testified at prior trials that he got her alone in a hotel room, slammed the door shut when she tried to leave and ultimately raped her, though she told him “I don’t want to do this” and “no.”

Afterward, Mann kept seeing and having what she has said were largely consensual sexual encounters with Weinstein. At points over the next roughly four years, she emailed him “miss you,” “there is no one else I would enjoy catching up with that understands me quite like you” and “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.”

Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that the messages show there was nothing but a caring relationship. Mann has said she was trying to manage a complicated dynamic with a volatile man.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

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Cole Tomas Allen appeared in court Monday to face federal charges after the chaotic encounter Saturday that resulted in shots being fired, Trump being hurried off the stage unharmed and guests ducking for cover underneath their tables. He was ordered to remain jailed pending additional court hearings, and faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

An FBI affidavit filed in the case reveals additional details about the planning behind the assault, with authorities alleging that Allen on April 6 reserved a room for himself at the Washington hotel where the event would be held weeks later under its typical tight security. He traveled by train cross-country from California last week, checking himself into the Washington Hilton one day before the dinner with a room reserved through the weekend.

The event had barely begun when officials say the 31-year-old Torrance, California, man, armed with a shotgun and pistol, tried to race past a security barricade near the cavernous ballroom holding hundreds of journalists and their guests, prompting an exchange of gunfire with Secret Service agents tasked with safeguarding the event.

“Violence has no place in civic life,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference. “We will ensure accountability is swift and certain.”

Allen was injured but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say. The Justice Department charged Allen with two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence, but the affidavit does not directly say that Allen was responsible for shooting the officer.

Suspect’s email sheds light on motive

The shooting resulted in the cancellation of the dinner, the first Trump had attended as president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said the night was supposed to be one of joy but instead was “hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible.”

Allen invoked his constitutional right to remain silent after his arrest, but authorities say an email he sent to family members and a former employer helps shed light on a motive.

In the message, a copy of which was included in the affidavit, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin,” alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions. The rambling text moves between confession, grievance and farewell, with Allen apologizing to family members, co-workers and even strangers he feared could be caught in the violence while at the same time seeking to explain the attack.

A magistrate judge granted a prosecutor’s request to keep Allen locked up pending additional hearings, including a detention hearing set for Thursday.

Allen did not speak at length during the quick appearance, as is customary, though one of his lawyers, Texira Abe, noted that he has no criminal record.

“He also is presumed innocent at this time,” she said.

The Associated Press called multiple phone numbers listed for Allen and relatives in public records, and there was no answer when a reporter knocked on the door of his home.

Records reveal that Allen is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer. A social media profile for a man with the same name and a photo that appears to match that of the suspect show he worked part-time for the last six years at a company that offers admissions counseling and test preparation services to aspiring college students.

Voter registration records from California lists Allen’s home address as his parent’s house on a tree-lined street in one of the most historic neighborhoods in Torrance, a city within the Los Angeles metro area. No one answered the door Sunday when an Associated Press reporter knocked. By the afternoon, several people who appeared to be law enforcement agents were canvassing the neighborhood, with one wearing an FBI sweatshirt.

A yard sign displayed at the family home supported a local candidate for judge who was endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Federal campaign finance records show Cole Allen contributed $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee in support of Kamala Harris for president in 2024 and listed his employer as C2 Education.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in 2017 in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, according to his profile on the social networking site LinkedIn. The small university is academically prestigious with a very low acceptance rate. He also listed his involvement there in a campus group that battled with Nerf guns and a Christian student fellowship.

Allen’s profile photo on LinkedIn shows him wearing a cap and gown when graduating with a master’s degree in computer science from California State University, Dominguez Hills. The photo appears to have been taken May 2025.

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    The allegations come after The Washington Post reported that FBI Director Kash Patel has instructed agents to prepare files from a decade-old investigation for possible public release. The case examined Swalwell’s past interactions with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative.

    According to the report, the documents are being reviewed and redacted by agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office — a move that former officials say is highly unusual, particularly since the investigation never resulted in criminal charges.

    The inquiry focused on Swalwell’s contact with Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang, who was involved in fundraising efforts tied to his early congressional campaigns. After being briefed by intelligence officials in 2015 about concerns regarding her connections, Swalwell cut off all contact. He has never been accused of wrongdoing.

    In a statement released Saturday, Swalwell dismissed the renewed attention to the case, calling it politically motivated.

    “This is about targeting political opponents,” he said, adding that the timing of the reported document release raises serious concerns as California’s gubernatorial race begins to take shape.

    Swalwell, who launched his campaign for governor in November, argued that the effort is designed to weaken his candidacy as he gains traction in the race.

    He also suggested that the move reflects a broader strategy by the administration to influence elections beyond Washington, saying the goal is to shape leadership in key states.

    The FBI has not publicly commented on the report.

    Supporters of Swalwell quickly echoed his concerns. Adam Schiff, who has endorsed him in the governor’s race, criticized what he described as a misuse of federal agencies, writing that such actions could undermine public trust.

    Schiff, who previously served alongside Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee, said the situation reflects a pattern of political retaliation. Both lawmakers played prominent roles in investigations and impeachment proceedings during Trump’s presidency.

    Other Democrats voiced similar concerns. Jimmy Gomez called the move a waste of resources, pointing out that the case had already been reviewed and closed without findings of misconduct.

    “Revisiting this now raises serious questions,” Gomez said, arguing the timing appears tied to the upcoming election.

    Meanwhile, Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said any effort to revive the case for political purposes could cross legal and ethical lines, including potential violations of federal rules governing political activity.

    The original investigation dates back to the early 2010s. According to reporting from the Associated Press, Fang became involved with Swalwell’s campaign during his first run for Congress in 2012 and later participated in fundraising efforts. She also helped place an intern in his office.

    Federal authorities alerted Swalwell in 2015 about their concerns regarding Fang, prompting him to sever ties. Years later, in 2023, the House Ethics Committee concluded a review of the matter without finding evidence of wrongdoing.

    In its closing letter, the committee noted the broader risks posed by foreign influence but did not accuse Swalwell of misconduct.

    As the governor’s race continues to develop, the controversy is likely to remain a flashpoint — blending national politics with California’s high-stakes election season.

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RIVERSIDE, CA — This week, a 51-year-old Riverside County man was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for his lead role in an operation that saw large quantities of methamphetamine trafficked from Mexico into the Inland Empire, prosecutors announced.

Timoteo Gomez, of Riverside, was sentenced Monday by United States District Judge Jesus G. Bernal. He is the 16th conviction in the federal probe that targeted criminal activities of the Riverside-based Casa Blanca Rifa criminal street gang. According to prosecutors, the gang is responsible for drug trafficking and associated violence in Riverside and the surrounding community.

From at least April 2020 until August 2020, Gomez and others purchased methamphetamine from their suppliers in Mexico as well as Los Angeles and Riverside counties and distributed it across the Inland Empire, according to prosecutors.

In April 2020, Gomez and others smuggled 46.6 pounds of methamphetamine from Mexico across the U.S. port of entry at Calexico and into Riverside County. In May 2020, another co-conspirator attempted to drive a 90.4 pounds-load of methamphetamine into the United States from Mexico through the San Ysidro port of entry, prosecutors said.

“In total, law enforcement seized more than 150 pounds of methamphetamine and $31,035 in cash during this investigation,” according to the prosecutors.

Gomez has been in federal custody since his June 2021 arrest. He pleaded guilty in January 2022 to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

The FBI’s Inland Empire Safe Streets Task Force, which includes the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, and the Riverside Police Department, led the investigation into the operation.

During the investigation, the task force received assistance from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

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NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — The FBI has ended its investigation of a fiery car wreck that killed two people at a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls after finding no evidence that it was a terror attack, easing a period of high tensions as Americans headed into the Thanksgiving holiday.

The FBI’s decision late Wednesday came several hours after the vehicle raced through an intersection, hit a median and was launched through the air before slamming into a line of booths and exploding at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. Local police are now handling the case as a traffic investigation.

“A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified,” the FBI’s Buffalo office said in a statement. “The matter has been turned over to the Niagara Falls Police Department as a traffic investigation.”

The investigation has been taken over by the Niagara Falls Police Department’s Crash Management Unit, according to a news release from the city’s police department, which added “Due to the complexity of the incident, the investigation will take some time to complete.”

The two people who died were a husband and wife, according to a person briefed on the investigation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information about the people who were killed. The identities of those in the car have not yet been released.

The crash prompted the closure of the Rainbow Bridge and three other bridges connecting western New York and Ontario, as federal officials swarmed the area and both U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received briefings. Hours later, officials sought to calm concerns on what is one the busiest travel days of the year.

“Based on what we know at this moment,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference, “there is no sign of terrorist activity in this crash.”

Hochul, a Democrat, said the car was “basically incinerated” with nothing left but the engine and a scattering of charred debris. Later Wednesday night, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said investigators had found “no connection to any terrorist or criminal group. He added that there was no evidence of chemicals or substances used in explosives during investigators’ swabbing of the scene.

The Rainbow Bridge has about 6,000 vehicles cross it each day, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory.

Witness Rickie Wilson, a Niagara Falls tour guide, was by his parked car nearby and turned around when he saw something in the air.

“I first thought it was an airplane. It looked like slow motion,” he said. “I said, ‘My God, it’s a car. It’s a vehicle, and it’s flying through the air.’”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI employees wrongly searched foreign surveillance data for the last names of a U.S. senator and a state senator, according to a court opinion released Friday. The disclosure could further complicate Biden administration efforts to renew a major spy program that already faces bipartisan opposition in Congress.

Another FBI employee improperly queried the Social Security number of a state judge who alleged civil rights violations by a municipal chief of police, according to the opinion by the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

News of the latest violations comes as the Biden administration faces a difficult battle in persuading Congress to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows spy agencies to collect swaths of emails and other communications.

Already this year, U.S. spy officials have disclosed that the FBI improperly searched Section 702 databases for information related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and the 2020 protests following the police killing of George Floyd.

U.S. officials say Section 702 enables their highest priority work on China, Russia and threats like terrorism and cybersecurity. But many Democratic and Republican lawmakers say they won’t vote to renew Section 702 when it expires at this year’s end without major changes targeting how the FBI uses foreign surveillance data to investigate Americans.

Democrats who have long demanded new limits on the FBI’s access to surveillance have increasingly been joined by Republicans angry about the bureau’s investigations of former President Donald Trump as well as errors and omissions made during the probe of Russian ties to his 2016 campaign.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that reforms at the bureau had led to “significant improvement” and fewer incidents of not following intelligence rules. He later sent a letter to congressional leaders arguing for the importance of the Section 702 program.

“We take seriously our role in protecting national security and we take just as seriously our responsibility to be good stewards of our Section 702 authorities,” Wray said in his statement. “We will continue to focus on using our Section 702 authorities to protect American lives and keeping our Homeland safe, while safeguarding civil rights and liberties.”

Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement that the latest errors show it is “long past time for Congress to step in.”

“As Congress debates reauthorizing Section 702, these opinions show why that can’t happen without fundamental reforms,” he said.

The surveillance court opinion released Friday didn’t disclose the names, states or party affiliations of the people whose names were searched. It said the searches of the state senator and U.S. senator occurred in June 2022. According to the court opinion, the analyst who did the searches had information that a foreign spy service was targeting the lawmakers. But the Justice Department’s national security division reviewed the searches and found that they didn’t meet FBI standards to limit how much information was retrieved, the opinion stated.

The state judge’s Social Security number was searched that October. It was later determined that the analyst did not have sufficient evidence to conduct the search and did not clear the search with higher-ups as required of politically sensitive searches, according to a senior FBI official who briefed reporters Friday on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the agency.

The unnamed U.S. senator has been notified of the search, but the state senator and state judge have not, the FBI official said.

The FBI gets a section of foreign surveillance data collected primarily by the National Security Agency, U.S. officials have said. Unlike the NSA and CIA, which go after intelligence targets abroad, the FBI is responsible for investigating threats affecting the U.S. such as cyberattacks or attempts to influence or interfere in American elections.

There are strict rules governing when analysts can search for U.S. citizens or businesses in surveillance data. Facing pressure from the surveillance court and Congress, the FBI in recent years has changed its search tools, ramped up training for analysts working with foreign data, and required new approvals from higher-ups for larger searches or sensitive searches like the names of public officials.

The FBI last month also announced new disciplinary measures. Any employees accused of negligence would immediately lose access to surveillance data until they undergo training and meet with a bureau attorney. The actions revealed Friday predate the new disciplinary policy.

Judge Rudolph Contreras’ opinion, which was completed in April 2023 and released Friday with redactions, says “there is reason to believe that the FBI has been doing a better job in applying the querying standard.” Of nearly 80,000 searches audited over a 16-month period ending in December 2022, 1.8% were found to have not met internal standards, the court said.

The total number of searches for Americans appears to have dropped as well. Over a year-long period ending in March, the FBI ran about 180,000 searches of U.S. citizens and other American entities, the court said.

That’s well below the roughly 2 million searches reported just between December 2020 and February 2021, something Contreras wrote “should indicate less intrusion into the private communications of U.S. persons.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — When Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested recently he might stop the FBI from relocating its downtown headquarters to a new facility planned for the Washington suburbs, it was more than idle thinking about an office renovation.

The nod from the Republican speaker is elevating a once-fringe proposal to upend the FBI in the aftermath of the federal indictment of Donald Trump over classified documents and the Justice Department’s prosecution of his allies, including some of the nearly 1,000 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Moving from far-right corners into the mainstream, the emerging effort to overhaul the nation’s premier law enforcement agency is rooted in increasingly forceful conservative complaints about an overly biased FBI that they claim is being weaponized against them.

“This is a pretty dramatic reversal of what the politics would have been 50 years ago,” said Beverly Gage, a historian at Yale who won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for her biography of the legendary FBI director, “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.”

The shifting attitudes among Republican members of Congress toward the FBI underscore the way Trump’s personal grievances have become legislative policy. Once the party of law and order, Republicans are now antagonists of federal law enforcement, undermining a storied institution and attacking Justice Department officials whose work is foundational to American democracy.

While political criticism of the FBI has followed the bureau since its founding with Hoover, who famously wiretapped civil rights leaders and orchestrated the infiltration of left-wing political organizations, the right-flank campaign against federal law enforcement had mostly simmered at the margins of party politics.

But the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts over storing and refusing to return classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club, and the ongoing prosecution of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, have fueled conservative anger. The Justice Department is also investigating Trump and his allies over the effort to challenge President Joe Biden’s election in the run-up to the 2021 Capitol attack.

Conservatives criticize the federal law enforcement on multiple fronts; among them, its work with social media companies to flag potentially dangerous postings, and a COVID-era memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland directing resources to combat violence against school officials. They compare the Trump investigations with what they say was a sweetheart deal for Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who is pleading guilty to misdemeanor tax evasion after a long investigation.

“Looking at the actions of the FBI, I think the whole leadership needs to change,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol last month.

Fresh from a visit with law enforcement in California, McCarthy said he envisions decentralizing the FBI by spreading operations into the states.

“This idea that we’re going to build a new, big Pentagon and put all the FBI mainly in one place, I don’t think it’s a good structure,” McCarthy said Friday, panning a conservative-led proposal to relocate the FBI to Alabama.

“I’d like to see the structure of a much smaller FBI administration building, and more FBI agents out across the country, helping to keep the country safe,” he said. “To me that’s better.”

In many ways, the resistance to a robust federal law enforcement agency extends a thread that has run across American history — from the aftermath of the Civil War, when Southern states rejected federal troops for Reconstruction, to Trump’s own 2024 campaign announcement in Waco, Texas, a region known for the federal siege of a separatist compound in 1993.

“The Washington headquarters is symbolic,” said Steven G. Bradbury, a former Trump administration general counsel who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Heritage is among those outside entities and advocacy organizations encouraging Congress to reimagine the FBI.

Bradbury’s “How to Fix the FBI” report outlines nearly a dozen options. One is scaling back its jurisdiction. Another is to overhaul section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, that was part of the Trump-Russia investigation over 2016 election interference and is a program some Democrats also want to limit.

“We have our finger on the pulse of what conservatives are reacting to,” said Bradbury. “The FBI needs to be rebuilt.”

Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared before the House Judiciary Committee for the first time since Republicans took control in January, facing a long list of criticisms, complaints and accusations of bias at the bureau.

“Are you protecting the Bidens?’ asked Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

“Absolutely not,” Wray said.

At another point Wray said, “The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background.”

He is a longtime Republican who had been appointed by Trump to fill the job after Director James Comey was fired in 2017.

Wray told the lawmakers that dismantling or defunding the FBI would be disastrous for the bureau’s 38,000 employees and “hurt our great state local law enforcement partners that depend on us each day to work with them on a whole slew of challenging threats.”

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called the hearing “bizarre.”

“I didn’t think I would ever see Republicans attacking a Republican appointed by Donald Trump to lead the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, essentially saying they want to defund the FBI,” she said.

The lawmaker said it was also odd to find herself defending the federal law enforcement agency that she, too, believes needs strong oversight from Congress. But she felt Democrats had to step in to counter Republican attacks on the FBI.

“That’s their message: They want to shut down the FBI because the FBI is continuing to investigate Donald Trump,” said Jayapal. “And that is really what this is about.”

Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, submitted a proposal before the hearing that calls for “eliminating taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarter facility.”

Jordan said in a letter to the Republican chair of the House appropriations committee that he also wants a plan for moving the FBI headquarters out of Washington, noting an existing facility in Huntsville, Alabama — a recommendation Heritage has also made.

“One of the goals we’ve set in this Congress as Republicans is to do the oversight so we can impact the appropriations process,” Jordan said in a brief interview at the Capitol, and “put limitations on how taxpayer money is spent to stop the weaponization of these agencies against the American people.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, which is competing with neighboring Maryland to host the new FBI headquarters, called the Republican ideas “a solution in search of a problem.”

“I think they just got a political bug against federal law enforcement agencies,” he said.

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