The FBI arrested a man Thursday on charges of stalking former Trump administration adviser Katie Miller, a government official familiar with the investigation told NBC News.
John Anthony Proia III, 41, was arrested and charged with stalking for making phone calls, sending text messages and leaving voicemails that contained “disturbing information” about the victim, the Justice Department said in a news release. The victim is described as a former political consultant and her husband is currently a senior federal government employee, the Justice Department said in a news release.
The Justice Department did not name Katie Miller, but an administration official familiar with the investigation confirmed to NBC News that the victim was Miller, who is the husband of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller and hosts a popular conservative podcast.
“Thank you to Todd Branch, Leah Foley and the FBI’s Washington field office for keeping me and my family safe. Glad to see a Boston grand jury indicting this man,” Miller wrote in a post on X on Thursday, referring to Attorney General Todd Branch and U.S. Attorney Leah Foley.
Proia was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Boston on one count of cyberstalking after being arrested earlier in the day. He allegedly contacted the former political adviser more than 40 times in less than two months, according to the Justice Department.
The defendants also allegedly sent disturbing messages to Miller’s parents between August and September 2026 cited in court documents.
“As the indictment alleges, the defendants repeatedly and relentlessly targeted the victim, her husband and her family with deeply disturbing communications that severely disrupted their lives,” Foley said in a statement.
Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, wrote in a statement Thursday that Proya was arrested “on suspicion of engaging in a sustained campaign of harassment designed to intimidate the victim and her family, causing severe emotional distress.”
The Justice Department said Proya called, texted and left voicemails to Miller, who lived in Washington, D.C., from “an ever-changing series of unknown phone numbers.”
The phone numbers were obtained through apps that provide toll-free numbers for calling and texting over Voice over Internet Protocol, the department added. According to court documents, the apps allowed users to hide their identities and easily generate new phone numbers.
According to court documents, Miller sometimes received multiple communications from Proya in a single day, including late-night phone calls. The Justice Department said Miller did take some calls, but Proia also left voicemails.
The calls “were allegedly made by a male caller who sounded threatening and often used profanity,” the Justice Department said.
The Justice Department also detailed several text messages sent to phone numbers associated with Miller’s parents.
Proya allegedly wrote to Miller’s mother in a message calling Stephen Miller “evil” and Katie Miller a “creature.” Another message purportedly featured a photo of Katie Miller, while another read: “Omg how can you be proud of this filth?”
In a text message to the victim’s father, Proya allegedly wrote: “Hey [first name of victim’s father],How about it? Hope it’s a good thing for you that your daughter marries a Jewish Nazi/White Supremacist [first name of victim’s mother]. Did you raise her to be a waste or did it come naturally? “
Proya’s arrest follows a Bloomberg report over the weekend that two senior FBI officials in Washington were demoted and reassigned to FBI headquarters over concerns the agency was not acting effectively enough to investigate threatening calls to Mueller, three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Darren Cox, assistant director in charge of the agency’s Washington field office, said in a statement to Bloomberg that the move was a personnel decision made at the field office level based on “our ongoing assessment of mission needs.”