Newly released White House documents detail months of Biden-era FBI phone tracking of Susie Wiles that swept in attorneys, Secret Service contacts and nearly 50 journalists, an operation the White House now calls a disgraceful abuse of power.
The FBI logged who called Susie Wiles, whom she called, when the calls happened, and how long they lasted for at least February through May 2023, according to documents the White House released this week. At the time, Wiles was running Trump’s political operation and serving as a top campaign adviser. She is now White House chief of staff.
Fox News reported that the records, tied to the Jack Smith “Plasmic Echo” investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and other presidential records, cataloged Wiles’ contacts with at least 21 attorneys plus campaign staff, Trump Organization personnel, Secret Service officials and journalists. The documents do not show what investigators hoped to learn from those contacts or what was discussed on the calls.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that records obtained from first-Trump White House phones also included communications between government officials and journalists from Fox News, CNN, CBS, NBC, Reuters and other major outlets. The probe had swept up communications involving nearly 50 journalists.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis did not say much about the scope of the monitoring.
"Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable."
The tracking covered a stretch when Wiles was a private citizen helping lead Trump’s political effort. Investigators recorded call times and durations, not the substance of conversations. A March 9 log listed a series of Wiles’ calls with at least six contacts identified as campaign personnel. A March 24 entry logged a 41-second call from “Lawyer 7” to Wiles and noted that earlier calls between the two had also been examined.
Contacts were labeled in the files as “Lawyer,” “Campaign” and “USSS.” Two Secret Service officials appear as “USSS 1” and “USSS 2.” Journalists tied to CNN, The Washington Post and Politico also show up in the contact lists. The records do not provide reliable durations for some of the Secret Service contacts.
Reuters had earlier reported that FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau subpoenaed phone records belonging to him and Wiles while they were private citizens as part of federal investigations involving Trump. Wiles’ attorney has denied that he consented to the FBI recording his client in 2023.
The same document dump sits alongside a wider pattern of scrutiny of Smith’s methods, including House releases on covert subpoenas of GOP lawmakers’ phone records.
The investigation began well before the 2023 phone tracking. The FBI and Justice Department launched the probe in March 2022. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray sought authorization. Attorney General Merrick Garland approved the full investigation. Garland appointed Jack Smith special counsel in November 2022 to oversee the ongoing case, which later included possible obstruction questions.
On Aug. 8, 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Agents entered shortly before 9 a.m. and began searching around 10:30 a.m. Pre-raid planning emails and checklists show agents gathered details about the travel of Melania Trump and their son Barron. One checklist item directed agents to “finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son's travel,” including aircraft type and timeline.
Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert Victoria Coates told Fox News Digital the tracking of Wiles was “unprecedented, dangerous and should be illegal.”
"The Biden FBI was following the precedent of the Obama FBI in 2015, when they used their authorities to surveil then-candidate Donald Trump and his campaign at Trump Tower as well as other candidates, notably my then-boss, Senator Ted Cruz. It’s the ultimate political dirty trick."
Coates rejected any claim that the Mar-a-Lago case justified this kind of reach, pointing to the Justice Department’s own handling of President Biden’s classified-document issues from his time as vice president.
"No, particularly by the Justice Department’s own very low standards in dealing with President Biden’s classified-document violations from his time as vice president, which were far more egregious than anything retained at Mar-a-Lago."
She also warned about the longer-term effect on campaigns and staff.
"In our increasingly digital world, it raises the grim specter of future campaigns where an incumbent can weaponize the private communications of not only a candidate and his family, but also his staff."
Grassley’s disclosure that nearly 50 journalists’ communications were swept into the Smith probe records adds another layer. The files show contacts with major outlets already named above. The documents released by the White House do not list every journalist or explain why those media contacts were logged alongside lawyers, campaign aides and Secret Service personnel.
That secrecy problem tracks with other disclosures about Smith’s team. Grassley has also detailed the secret review of text messages from 44 members of Congress.
House Republicans have pressed the same accountability theme. One 57-page report accused Smith of trying to influence the 2024 election and referred him for criminal charges, while separate filings show prosecutors on the documents case met with former CIA Director John Brennan during case prep. Sen. Marsha Blackburn has gone further, filing suit and arguing the former special counsel should face criminal charges.
Those parallel fights over process matter because the Wiles logs sit inside the same investigative machine. The White House release puts the metadata trail in public view. The phone logs show the FBI mapped Wiles’ professional and protective circle for months. They do not show a narrow, carefully limited inquiry confined to a single classified-documents question.
The pattern also includes Jordan’s referral package on alleged election influence and related oversight work on how the special counsel’s office used compulsory process against political targets and their associates.
The released material is precise on logistics and vague on justification. Investigators knew the clock time of a 41-second lawyer call. They logged campaign contacts by the half-dozen. They labeled Secret Service numbers. They recorded journalist-linked numbers. They planned around the travel of a former first lady and a minor child before the Mar-a-Lago search.
What the files do not answer is the predicate for each category of contact. There is no clear public statement in the released material explaining why campaign aides, defense lawyers, protective details and reporters all belonged in the same metadata net. There is no account of what investigators believed those calls would prove about classified records or obstruction.
That gap is the heart of the accountability fight. When the government seizes or subpoenas phone records of a private citizen running a presidential campaign, the burden is on the government to show a tight, lawful purpose. These documents show the sweep. They do not show the limits.
Further pressure continues through litigation and oversight, including Blackburn’s lawsuit seeking criminal accountability for Smith and fresh attention to how prosecutors built the documents case.
The White House has now put the “Plasmic Echo” paper trail in daylight. Wiles’ call logs, the journalist count Grassley flagged, the Secret Service labels, the lawyer tags and the pre-raid travel checklist all sit in the same record set. The people who authorized and ran that monitoring still owe the public a full accounting of why a campaign adviser’s phone became a months-long map of the Trump orbit.
Voters can live with tough investigations. They cannot live with a justice system that treats political opponents’ staff, lawyers and press contacts as fair game for open-ended metadata trawling.
