White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against the story from ABC News that said the FBI warned California police departments about the possibility of Iran launching drone attacks against the West Coast. “Iran Allegedly Aspired” To Conduct Drone Attack On California, FBI Warned "This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people. 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?" Leavitt said. "TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did," she added. This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people. They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even… https://t.co/jKey9ahsNk — Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 12, 2026 Leavitt shared a post from FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson. "On the left is the way ABC (or their source) reported the FBI alert. On the right is the actual FBI alert that went to JTFF partners. You will notice the word left out —'Unverified,'" Williamson wrote. The way ABC News reported the FBI alert: “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. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack." The alert that went to JTFF partners read: "We recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack." On the left is the way ABC (or their source) reported the FBI alert. On the right is the actual FBI alert that went to JTFF partners. You will notice the word left out —“Unverified.” https://t.co/zSBHObisAI pic.twitter.com/XEZPeNKmDA — Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 12, 2026 A closer look: More from The Hill: Concern over potential threats to the U.S. in the wake of the strikes on Iran have 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 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.”