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White House officials downplay FBI memo to California law enforcement warning of possible drone attack

March 12, 2026

White House officials on Thursday, March 12, downplayed a memo sent out by the FBI to some police agencies in California warning them about Iran allegedly aspiring at one point to conduct a surprise attack using drones from an offshore boat.

ABC News was the first to report on the memo.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on X Thursday said the story should be “immediately retracted” for “providing false information to intentionally harm the American people.”

She said the outlet wrote the story based on an email that was sent to local law enforcement “about a single, unverified tip.

“The email even states that the tip was based on ‘unverified’ intelligence,” she wrote. “Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY?”

When asked by a reporter about the memo and its contents, President Donald Trump said “It’s being investigated. You have a lot of things happening.”

News of the memo broke Wednesday morning.

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

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department confirmed it received the memo, while other local law enforcement agencies declined to comment on the memo itself.

Most of the agencies put out statements expressing no evidence of any credible threats to their areas, while some said they were increasing patrols in places of worship and cultural centers.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said he started the state operations center after the U.S. airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28, said he was aware of the information and was “meeting consistently with representatives in the industry, some more well-known than others, to game out break-the-glass scenarios. We hope those don’t occur.”

Since launching the war, President Donald Trump has cycled from calls for “unconditional surrender” to sounding amenable to an end state in which Iran trades one hard-line ayatollah for another. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial strikes.

The now 13-day-old conflict is affecting nearly every corner of the Middle East and causing economic tremors around the globe. With neither side budging, the war is now on an unpredictable path and a credible endgame is unclear.

Orange County Register

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White House officials downplay FBI memo to California law enforcement warning of possible drone attack

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