The FBI subpoenaed Kash Patel and Susie Wiles’ phone records in 2022 and 2023, when both were private citizens, as part of a federal probe into Donald Trump, Fox News has confirmed.
Patel is the current FBI director, and Wiles is White House chief of staff.
At least a handful of FBI employees were fired Wednesday, Fox News has been told. Names were not given due to privacy reasons.
Reuters first disclosed the subpoenas, which were issued during the Biden administration, while special counsel Jack Smith was investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Smith ended up charging Trump in 2023 with multiple felony offenses related to alleged efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s handling of the documents after he left office.
A federal judge later dismissed the election interference case after Smith moved to drop it following Trump’s re-election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
Smith also dropped the Justice Department’s appeal of a separate ruling that dismissed the classified documents case. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in both matters.
In a statement to Fox News Wednesday, Patel called the move to seize the phone records ‘outrageous and deeply alarming.’
‘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,’ he said.
The FBI had found the phone records in files labeled as ‘Prohibited,’ Reuters reported.
Patel also said he recently ended the FBI’s ability to categorize files as ‘Prohibited.’
Smith testified last year that records of members’ calls helped investigators verify the timeline of events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
He said prosecutors ‘followed all legal requirements in getting those records’ and told a House panel the records obtained from lawmakers did not include the content of conversations, Reuters reported.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.