FBI Subpoenas Phone Records of Key Officials in Trump Investigation
The FBI has reportedly issued subpoenas for the phone records of Kash Patel, the FBI Director, and Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, as part of a federal investigation concerning President Donald Trump during the Biden administration.
Patel expressed his outrage, stating, “It is outrageous and deeply disturbing that former FBI leadership used flimsy pretenses to secretly subpoena my own phone records, along with those of current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and hid the entire process in a prohibited case file intended to evade all scrutiny.” This statement follows a report from Reuters.
According to the report, these subpoenas were issued between 2022 and 2023, coinciding with investigations into classified documents and alleged interference in the 2020 election. They sought “call records,” detailing the duration of calls and the parties involved, although not their contents.
The classified nature of these phone records made them harder to access within the FBI’s systems. Notably, Patel had recently put an end to the FBI’s ability to classify files in that manner. He mentioned that he still doesn’t fully grasp why the records were seized.
Furthermore, it appears that the Biden administration’s FBI recorded conversations between Wiles and her attorney. While the attorney consented to the recording, Wiles reportedly was unaware that the call was being recorded.
At the time, both Wiles and Patel were private citizens actively supporting Trump’s re-election campaign.
In a related note, special counsel Jack Smith, appointed in 2022, indicted Trump on 40 felonies stemming from an FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, which uncovered classified documents. Subsequently, in 2025, Smith received a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee regarding the president’s investigation.
Recently, a federal judge blocked the release of Smith’s report on the classified document review. Smith has maintained that his team adhered to the law during the investigation, although many have criticized him for allegedly politically targeting Trump and his associates.
While reports suggest that subpoenas and phone collections during such investigations are standard, they arise in a context of increasing concerns that Biden’s Department of Justice might be weaponized against Trump and the Republican Party.
As of Thursday afternoon, Patel, along with the White House and the FBI, had not made any public comments about the call records.
