FBI Director Kash Patel revealed that the Biden administration subpoenaed records of phone calls that both he and now-White House chief of staff Susie Wiles made in 2022 and 2023.
The subpoenas were part of the FBI’s probe of President Donald Trump.
“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,” Patel said in a statement to Reuters.
Under President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as a special prosecutor to investigate Trump in 2022 over alleged mishandling of classified documents and alleged interference with the 2020 presidential election.
Smith produced a two-volume report on his investigation into the classified documents case, although a federal judge blocked him from releasing the second volume.
Both Patel and Wiles were private citizens when their records were subpoenaed.
The FBI recorded a phone call between Wiles and her lawyer. The lawyer was aware of the FBI’s involvement, but Wiles was not.
Patel said he did not know the FBI’s purpose in seizing the phone records of him and Wiles, who became a top Trump adviser after he left office in 2021 and eventually co-campaign manager for his 2024 run against Biden. Patel was also a Trump political ally during this time.
Patel said the collection of phone records extended into Wiles’ time as Trump’s co-campaign manager, though he did not say when exactly the record collection began or ended.
At least 10 current FBI employees have been dismissed due to targeting Patel, Wiles, and others, FBI sources told The New York Times.
Trump officials told Axios the news might be just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“I am in shock,” Wiles reportedly told associates in response to learning about the subpoena.
Reuters contributed to this report.