FBI Director Kash Patel says the FBI under President Biden subpoenaed his phone records and those of Susie Wiles, who ran President Trump's campaign and is now White House chief of staff, when they were private citizens.
The big picture: Trump officials familiar with the investigation tell Axios the revelations might be "the tip of the iceberg," and that the FBI may have probed more Trumpworld figures.
- Wiles told associates: "I am in shock."
What they're saying: Patel said in a statement to Axios, "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."
State of play: Patel told Reuters, which broke the story, that investigators obtained "toll records" — the timing and recipients of calls. The FBI sought records of calls Patel and Wiles made in 2022 and 2023, amid the federal probe of whether Trump improperly stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Patel said.
- "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."
Driving the news: About 10 FBI employees, including veteran agents, were ousted this week for their work on the Mar-a-Lago case, the N.Y. Times reports (gift link).
- The Times adds this context: "It has been known for years that Mr. Patel was closely scrutinized by investigators under the special counsel Jack Smith and was compelled to testify in front of a grand jury. The fact that investigators obtained some of Ms. Wiles's phone records was made public during the inquiry into Mr. Trump's mishandling of classified documents."
Anthony Coley — Justice Department director of public affairs under Biden, and now an MS NOW contributor and public affairs consultant — told Axios that Patel "is on a singular mission: to find something, anything for which to prosecute Jack Smith. That's what Donald Trump demanded, and that's what he and Attorney General Bondi are trying to deliver."
