Biden’s FBI secretly tracked Melania and Barron Trump’s travel and monitored Susie Wiles’ calls with lawyers

The FBI under former Democratic President Joe Biden monitored the phone records of Susie Wiles, now White House chief of staff, while investigating President Donald Trump over classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

VOZ reviewed the files released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force on “Plasmic Echo,” the name of the secret operation later taken over by special counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump in this case and over the events of January 6. A review of the files published on the White House website found that, between February and May 2023, agents tracked the phone activity of Wiles, who was leading Trump’s political operation, to record her contacts with lawyers, campaign advisers and the press.

Other emails show that the law enforcement agency factored Melania and Barron Trump’s travel into its planning for the Mar-a-Lago raid.

Fox News and the New York Post were the first outlets to report on these files, and VOZ examined the documents to cross-check their findings. According to the files, the data collection technique cited in the emails is PR/TT, which records the numbers, times and durations of incoming and outgoing calls. In other words, the documents do not contain what was said during the conversations.

According to the records, Wiles’ phone was used regularly. On March 9, 2023, for example, she made or received 39 calls involving Trump’s campaign, lawyers and President Trump’s own “vanity” number. An entry from May 19 notes that the number called her for 16 minutes and 11 seconds, again without revealing what was said during the conversation.

A report covering those days explains that the objective was to “document WILES’ telephone communication with former President Donald Trump’s attorneys and members of Office 45 around May 19, 2023.”

Journalists also appear in the records. A message from late February notes that an ABC News reporter called Wiles at 8:48 a.m. for 2 minutes and 36 seconds. By April, the then-head of Trump’s political operation had already been interviewed by FBI agents in Jacksonville, and analysts reviewed her phone activity on the day of that interview, including calls to Trump, several of his lawyers, a Washington Post reporter and Politico’s Florida bureau chief. The records also include contacts with Kash Patel, now FBI director, who was not serving in government at the time.

The other portion of the released files dates to 2022. An email exchanged among agents in late May lists the steps to take before executing the controversial Mar-a-Lago search warrant, including “finalizing the FBI’s understanding of the former president’s, first lady’s and youngest son’s travel (aircraft type and specific schedule).” Another document states that “any search warrant would be executed after the former president leaves Mar-a-Lago.”

Although the files reveal monitoring of Trump’s family, they do not describe Melania or Barron as surveillance targets. Their movements appear as part of the logistics for the operation, which took place on August 8, 2022, and included Trump’s office and the couple’s bedrooms.

A month earlier, according to the New York Post, an agent raised questions about the FBI’s legal authority to search the former president’s office and bedroom.

The documents also include a memorandum from then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, dated March 24, 2022, requesting authorization from Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a full sensitive investigation, with approval dated March 28 and a handwritten note recommending approval. The New York Post, meanwhile, describes a May 2022 memorandum in which Wray warned that the case could involve Trump administration figures and disrupt the democratic process if it became public before an election, and reports that Garland authorized the surveillance on Wray’s recommendation.

This case against Trump was dismissed in July 2024, following a federal ruling that found Garland, who also served as Biden’s attorney general, had illegally appointed Smith. Trump and his allies called it a “witch hunt,” along with other legal proceedings brought by progressive prosecutors.

The White House described the actions as an abuse against Trump: “Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power.”