Federal authorities on Thursday charged a Boston-area man with harassing Katie Miller, the conservative podcaster and wife of senior White House aide Stephen Miller, in a case that sparked a heated debate among prosecutors and within the FBI.
John Anthony Proia III, 41, of Waltham, Massachusetts, was charged with one count of cyberstalking. Prosecutors say he contacted his victim more than 40 times via phone and text over the span of two months earlier this year, leaving menacing messages about her and her husband. He also sent her parents disturbing texts, they said.
Although prosecutors did not identify Proia’s target by name, describing her in a news release only as a “former political advisor and prominent member of the Republican party,” two people familiar with the matter confirmed the alleged target was Katie Miller.
Authorities say Proia used an ever-changing series of phone numbers to contact Katie Miller at all hours, often using expletives and vulgar language to criticize her and her husband.
“The defendant repeatedly and relentlessly targeted the victim, her husband and her family with deeply disturbing communications that profoundly disrupted their lives,” said Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.
Proia was arrested Thursday by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and was scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court later in the day, the Justice Department said. It was not immediately clear from court records whether he had retained an attorney.
Proia’s indictment follows days of internal Justice Department debate over the case. Last week, the FBI transferred the top two agents running the counterterrorism division of its Washington field office over dissatisfaction with what higher-ups deemed to be the slow pace of their investigation into the threats against Katie Miller, according to three people familiar with the matter.
As President Donald Trump’s policies, including an immigration enforcement crackdown, have provoked fierce opposition across the country, the administration has prioritized prosecuting people who threaten public officials, federal agents and judges.
In some cases, those threats have prompted indisputably serious concerns from federal investigators that the perpetrator intends to commit an act of politically motivated violence.
But in many others, defense attorneys have objected to the Justice Department’s decision to label protesters’ actions as “domestic terrorism” and questioned its expanding definition of what constitutes a threat worthy of federal prosecution.
Several defendants who have been charged in recent months are accused of little more than making vaguely menacing posts online, with little evidence to suggest they had any intent or ability to act on those alleged threats.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department charged former FBI director James B. Comey with allegedly threatening the president’s life after he posted a photo to social media depicting seashells spelling out “86 47.” Trump is the 47th president and “86” can mean to get rid of someone. Prosecutors say it is also mob slang for killing someone.
Comey maintains he did not create the shell arrangement and had no idea it could be read as a threat.
Prosecutors said Thursday that the relentless nature of Proia’s alleged communications instilled “real fear and harm.” In one message, cited by authorities, he purportedly contacted Katie Miller’s parents referring to Stephen Miller as a “Jewish Nazi/white supremacist.”
“Did you raise her to be trash or did that just happen naturally?” Proia allegedly texted them.
The Millers have emerged as frequent targets. Last year, the couple and their three children moved to housing at a secure military facility, citing concern for their personal safety after a series of protests in the Arlington neighborhood where they were previously residing.
Local activists posted fliers disclosing their home address and scrawled messages on sidewalks in chalk accusing Stephen Miller — the architect of controversial White House policies on immigration enforcement and domestic terrorism — of “destroying democracy.”
“If we don’t step up and start putting people in cuffs for these actions, what comes next?” Katie Miller asked in a Fox News interview shortly afterward.
In May, Virginia prosecutors declined to bring a case against Barbara Wien, a retired peace studies professor, who was involved in those protests, saying she was “not likely to be found guilty and her speech [was] likely to be found constitutionally protected.”
The FBI’s Washington field office was also involved in that investigation, but to date no federal charges have been filed.
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