Leavitt pushes back against report of FBI warning of Iran threat to California

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The Hill's Headlines — March 12, 2026

The Hill's Headlines — March 12, 2026

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on an ABC News report that the FBI warned police departments in California that Iran wants to retaliate over the U.S. military operation in the country, saying “no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.”

“This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people,” Leavitt wrote on the social platform X.

“They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even states the tip was based on *unverified* intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY?” she said.

The Hill has reached out to ABC News for comment.

Leavitt was responding to reporting from the network that stated the FBI warned California police departments that Iran could retaliate against the U.S. military campaign deploying drones to the West Coast.

“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” reads an alert sent at the end of February, according to ABC News. “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”

FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson posted a screenshot of what he said was the “actual” FBI alert that went out to Joint Terrorism Task Forces partners along with a screenshot of ABC News’s statement, noting that the original statement said “we recently acquired unverified  information.”

Concern over potential threats to the U.S. in the wake of the strikes on Iran has risen in recent days. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he has been briefed on how many Iranian sleeper cells are in the U.S.

“A lot of people came in through [former President] Biden with his stupid open border,” the president said. “But we know where most of them are. We’ve got our eye on all of them, I think.”

ABC News included an editors note, noting the FBI’s version of the alert. 

“The FBI has posted a fuller version of its alert to California authorities, which includes that the information was unverified. The latest version of this story has been updated with the full statement,” the note read. 

This story was updated at 2:13 p.m.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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