Newly released files show the FBI tracked Melania Trump’s and Barron Trump’s travel while planning the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, and later tapped the phone of Susie Wiles, co-campaign manager of Donald Trump’s political operation and now White House chief of staff, the New York Post reported.
The files come from Plasmic Echo, the classified-documents investigation later handed to special counsel Jack Smith. Nine were declassified or approved for release on September 29 by White House Counsel Will Scharf, and the White House Government Transparency Task Force posted them Monday. Just the News, by John Solomon and Steven Richards, published the Wiles material first.
This was never about missing classified pages.
Front and center was Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice, which opened a Sensitive Investigative Matter on a former president, timed a search of his home around his wife, Melania, and their minor son, Barron, then kept a line on Wiles while he was running.
Travel, down to the aircraft
A late-May 2022 email among FBI agents, names redacted, lists the steps as the bureau prepared to search Trump’s Palm Beach estate. One item: “Finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel (type of aircraft and specific timeline).”
Another note said any search would be served after the former president left Mar-a-Lago. It went ahead on August 8, 2022, and covered Trump’s office and both of the couple’s bedrooms. Barron was a minor. The checklist treated his movements, and Melania’s, as operational details for when to go in.
The release does not show either as a target. It shows a Biden-era bureau building a raid around a former first lady and a child. On July 13, 2022, an assistant special agent in charge said the Washington Field Office had not established probable cause. The department said it had, and wanted the residence, office, and storage space covered. The agent suggested calling Trump’s attorney again, or speaking with Trump and his counsel, and called the paperwork counterproductive if the goal was to recover the papers. The department “persistently disagreed.” Headquarters proceeded anyway.
Two sign-offs from the top
Plasmic Echo opened with a sign-off from the top. On March 24, 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray sent Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco a request to approve a Sensitive Investigative Matter, because those who might be investigated included a presidential candidate or senior campaign staff. On March 28, Monaco wrote on the memo, “Merrick, I recommend you approve,” and initialed that note. Garland signed the same day.
Wray’s March 24, 2022 memo opening Plasmic Echo. Monaco’s March 28 note, and Garland’s approval, are on the last page. Source: Just the News
A separate May 2022 note, reported by the Post, is the one tied to wiretap approval. Wray warned the investigation could reach top figures from the 45th president’s administration and “could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed prior to an election.” He urged approval anyway. At the bottom he wrote, “Merrick, I recommend you approve. CW.” The misspelling is in the original. The Post reported Garland approved the wiretaps on that advice.
Susie Wiles’ phone, February to May 2023
Trump announced his 2024 campaign in November 2022 and named Wiles co-campaign manager. From at least February through May 2023, agents monitored her cellphone anyway. The logs cover calls and texts with at least 21 lawyers tied to Trump, labeled Lawyer 1 through Lawyer 21, plus campaign aides, political advisers, and at least five journalists. Most names are redacted. Two are not: Kash Patel, then out of government and now FBI director, and John Solomon, founder of Just the News.
The tool is a pen register and trap-and-trace. It captures who called whom, when, and for how long. Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3121–3127 it takes a court order, and the standard is relevance to an ongoing investigation, not probable cause. None of the nine includes the order for her line. On February 3, 2023, the FBI also asked Google, Microsoft, MSN, and Yahoo to preserve the headers on her email: who emailed whom and when.
Agents logged calls with Trump on a “vanity number,” entered under FPOTUS. A May 19, 2023 entry reads: “2:05 pm The FPOTUS Vanity Number called WILES for 16 minutes and 11 seconds.” The word on that line is not in the files.
On March 9, 2023, Wiles made or received 39 calls. A sample from that evening.
A March 24 email shows how closely they watched. Agents saw Lawyer 7 call Wiles at 2:04 p.m. for 41 seconds. He had first called her at 2:10 p.m. on March 21, and she returned the call at 2:59 p.m. for 1 minute and 34 seconds, the only contact between them since the register began. A late-February note captured an ABC News reporter calling her at 8:48 a.m. for 2:36 seconds. Nothing in that note is evidence. They logged it anyway.
Wiles sat for an FBI interview in Jacksonville on April 7, two lawyers attending. On April 10 the Washington Field Office went back through her calls “to determine contacts of interest on the date of her FBI interview.” The April 6–8 log lists reporters from The Washington Post, CNN, and Politico, and a call of more than an hour with the Jacksonville firm Bedell, Dittmar, DeVault, Pillans & Coxe. She also spoke with Trump and several of his lawyers. This does not show a device on their phones. It shows the government reaching past the papers and into the press, using her phone to see who was calling.
A records case does not need the campaign manager’s line to map which reporters dialed her in the days around an FBI interview.
An endorsement is not evidence
The release shows Smith went past the search for the papers and after the campaign itself. A public donor list and political speech are not evidence, but both somehow made the cut at Biden’s DOJ. His team pulled Trump’s Save America PAC filings, including a 72-page FEC Form 3X naming donors and vendors, and monitored political speech on social media.
On February 6, 2023, former national security adviser Robert O’Brien was declining a voluntary interview. Prosecutors told the FBI to check whether he was still endorsing Republicans and whether he had endorsed Trump again. The subject line could not be blunter: “Ambassador O’Brien Has he endorsed Trump again?” Two days later, Smith subpoenaed him.
What happened to the case
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon killed the Florida documents case in July 2024, ruling that Garland’s appointment of Smith violated the Constitution. Smith dropped the appeal after the election. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Monday: “Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable.”
The release does not show the content of Wiles’ calls. It does show enforcement turned political, and it shows the trajectory of a weaponized Biden DOJ treating a former first lady’s and a minor’s travel as raid logistics, monitoring a campaign manager’s contacts with defense lawyers and reporters for months, and demanding to know whether a Republican witness had endorsed Trump again. They were tracking a minor. Two sign-offs from the top put that in writing. Wray sent it up. Monaco recommended it. Garland signed, twice, once for the Sensitive Investigative Matter and once for the wiretaps, after writing that disclosure could disrupt the democratic process. Other presidents kept classified papers and did not get a raid built around a wife and a child. Garland signed anyway. The work went on. This was a politicized stunt.
