Documents released by the White House reveal that the FBI monitored the phone activity of Susie Wiles, now President Donald Trump's chief of staff, from February through May 2023. The records, part of the "Plasmic Echo" investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents, detail how investigators tracked Wiles' communications with attorneys, journalists, campaign officials, and Secret Service agents.
The released files provide a granular view of the bureau's monitoring scope. Investigators catalogued who called Wiles, whom she called, the timing of these interactions, and their duration. The documents identify at least 21 attorneys among her contacts, alongside personnel from the Trump Organization and the Secret Service. While some entries name specific journalists from CNN, The Washington Post, and POLITICO, many others are listed only by generic labels such as "Lawyer," "Campaign," or "USSS."
The surveillance extended into Trump's security detail, capturing contacts with two Secret Service officials identified in the logs as "USSS 1" and "USSS 2." A March 24 entry shows agents logging a 41-second call from an individual labeled "Lawyer 7" to Wiles, after which they examined earlier calls between the same two parties. This pattern suggests investigators were tracing connections across her network rather than merely recording isolated incidents. Similarly, a March 9 log documents a series of calls between Wiles and at least six campaign personnel, noting the time and length of each communication without revealing the content.
The "Plasmic Echo" probe was initiated in March 2022 by the FBI and Justice Department. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray sought authorization for the investigation, which Attorney General Merrick Garland approved. In November 2022, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee the case. At the time of the surveillance, Wiles was serving as a top campaign adviser for Trump before later becoming his White House chief of staff.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis characterized the monitoring as a "disgraceful abuse of government power," stating that spying on political opponents constitutes the weaponization of law enforcement. Victoria Coates, a foreign policy expert at the Heritage Foundation, described the tracking as "unprecedented, dangerous, and should be illegal." Coates compared the actions to previous FBI surveillance of Trump's 2015 campaign and criticized the Justice Department for what she characterized as a lack of accountability regarding President Joe Biden's classified documents case.
The declassified materials also include operational planning emails related to the August 8, 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. These emails contained checklists directing agents to finalize details on the travel schedules of Melania Trump and her son Barron, including aircraft types and specific timelines, to determine when to execute the warrant. Agents entered the property shortly before 9 a.m. that day and began searching around 10:30 a.m.