According to newly released White House documents, former special counsel Jack Smith's team monitored the phone and email metadata of Susie Wiles while she ran Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, and the travel of Trump family members.
The records show that investigators logged her contacts with journalists, defense attorneys, and political advisers.
The tracking covered Wiles' communications with at least five journalists, 21 different defense attorneys, and several political advisers, the documents show.The outlets she contacted included CNN, The Washington Post, Politico, and Just the News, but most of the names of whom she contacted were redacted.
Wiles now serves as White House chief of staff.
Investigators obtained the information through a pen register, also known as a trap-and-trace device. The tool captures metadata such as the numbers a person calls and the times of those calls, but does not record what the parties said. The surveillance formed part of "Plasmic Echo," the FBI's name for the investigation into Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents.
"These are First Amendment activities, reporting, social media, donating, political advice for campaigns, yet Jack Smith's team seemed very interested in them," a Trump administration official told reporters Friday.
An FBI memo dated March 10 included three pages of Wiles' phone contacts. A separate memo recorded that agents interviewed Wiles on April 7, 2023, and showed her four pages of communications.
The documents also describe what investigators wanted from the records. According to the files, the FBI's Washington Field Office and a redacted person or entity reviewed information associated with Wiles "to document WILES's telephonic communic
