FBI Surveillance on Trump Family Revealed
Under President Joe Biden, the FBI conducted surveillance that included monitoring the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and tracking the travel of Melania and Barron Trump as part of an investigation into former President Donald Trump.
This surveillance, described in a White House report released recently, was known as “Plasmic Echo” and occurred in 2022. The FBI’s intention was to determine the right moment to search Trump’s estate in Palm Beach for sensitive documents he had allegedly taken there during his presidency. It’s a pretty wild scenario, when you think about it.
In March 2022, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland approved the wiretaps based on the recommendation of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray. Wray had expressed concerns that public knowledge of the investigation into a presidential candidate could disrupt the democratic process ahead of an election.
Emails among FBI agents also revealed a directive to “Finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel (type of aircraft and specific timeline),” which was a prerequisite for issuing a search warrant.
After the FBI executed the raid on Trump’s Florida estate in August 2022, they began intercepting calls on Wiles’ cellphone from February to May of the following year.
Logs indicated that the FBI monitored communications between Wiles and several individuals, including legal representatives, campaign staff, political advisors, journalists, Trump, and the current FBI director, Kash Patel.
In a statement to the New York Post, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis characterized the surveillance as “a disgraceful abuse of government power.” She added, “Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable.”
Plasmic Echo is just one of many operations, such as Crossfire Hurricane and the Steele dossier, through which government entities have conducted surveillance on Trump during his political campaigns.
