FBI Director Kash Patel revealed this week that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under former President Joe Biden subpoenaed his phone records as well as those of Susie Wiles, who at the time was a private citizen running President Donald Trump’s campaign and now serves as White House chief of staff.
Trump administration officials familiar with the matter told Axios that the disclosures could be “the tip of the iceberg,” suggesting additional individuals in Trump’s orbit may have been targeted. Wiles stated “I am in shock.”
In a statement to Axios, Patel said, “It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”
The developments come as roughly 10 FBI employees, including veteran agents, were removed this week over their involvement in the Mar-a-Lago probe, according to The New York Times. The Times noted that Patel had long been under scrutiny by investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith, and that some of Wiles’ phone records had previously become public during the classified documents inquiry.
According to Reuters, Patel said investigators obtained “toll records,” detailing the timing and recipients of calls. The FBI sought records of calls made by Patel and Wiles in 2022 and 2023 during the federal investigation into whether Trump improperly stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
“In 2023,” Reuters reports, “the FBI recorded a phone call between Wiles and her attorney, according to two FBI officials. Wiles' attorney was aware that the call was being recorded, and consented to it, but Susie Wiles was not.”