At least two more allies of President Donald Trump have said the Biden-era FBI secretly sought their records, in addition to the records of FBI Director Kash Patel and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Republican operative Corey Lewandowski, who currently serves as a Department of Homeland Security aide, said Thursday he received the same type of notice that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino disclosed last year regarding records seizures. Both men said they were notified in 2024 that Google had complied with FBI legal demands for information tied to their accounts, underscoring how broadly the bureau’s investigation into Trump extended and fueling Republicans’ claims that President Joe Biden “weaponized” law enforcement to target his political opponents.
“Funny – I received the same notice,” Lewandowski wrote on X. “Where is the media outcry. Right, they don’t care when it happens to Trump people.”
Lewandowski and Scavino both said the notices they received indicated that Google had been under a court-authorized gag order and could not notify them sooner about the demands for their records. Prosecutors commonly obtain such gag orders as part of their investigations.
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Patel, meanwhile, confirmed the existence of the subpoenas for his and Wiles’ phone records in a statement to Fox News this week and said the subpoenas were difficult to access because the files for them had added layers of protection.
“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,” Patel said.
Fox News was told that the subpoenas sought Patel’s and Wiles’ toll records, which include dates and times and phone numbers related to messages and calls but do not include the contents of them. The subpoenas themselves have not been made public, so the details about what they sought remain unconfirmed.
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Two FBI officials told Fox News that in 2023, agents also recorded a phone call between Wiles and her lawyer. The officials said the lawyer was aware the call was being recorded and consented, but Wiles was not.
The claim about the lawyer has however been disputed. An unnamed lawyer representing Wiles at the time of the phone call in question denied to Axios that he knew of the FBI recording a phone call between him and his client.
“If I ever pulled a stunt like that I wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — have a license to practice law. I’m as shocked as Susie,” the lawyer told the outlet.
While it is unclear exactly what the FBI was investigating, the timing and targets signal the subpoenas could be related to the bureau’s probe into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents. Patel and Wiles, both private citizens during the Biden administration, were known witnesses in the classified documents case, in which special counsel Jack Smith alleged Trump violated the Espionage Act by hoarding national security-related documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
It has previously been widely reported that Patel was summoned to give grand jury testimony in exchange for immunity in 2022 as part of the same probe.
The FBI investigated Trump over both his alleged retention of classified documents and his alleged attempts to subvert the 2020 election. Documents released by Congress show that the FBI — and later Smith, after he became special counsel — issued hundreds of subpoenas targeting Republican entities and figures, including the phone records of several GOP lawmakers. Republican targets have characterized Smith’s actions as an egregious abuse of power and hyper-politicized, while Smith has repeatedly defended his work as by-the-book and apolitical.
In line with his claims of a weaponized FBI, Patel fired at least 10 bureau employees around the same time he revealed the subpoenas. The move drew condemnation from the FBI Agents Association, which represents thousands of employees and has maintained that agents’ actions are typically the result of following orders within the chain of command.
“The FBIAA condemns today’s unlawful termination of FBI Special Agents, which—like other firings by Director Patel—violates the due process rights of those who risk their lives to protect our country,” the FBIAA said. “These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals—ultimately putting the nation at greater risk.”
Former U.S. Attorney John Fishwick of Virginia told Fox News the firings could keep Patel “in good stead with President Trump,” saying Patel did not “look like a prototypical G-man” during his viral and widely reported on celebration at the Olympics in the Team USA men’s ice hockey team’s locker room.
The White House referred Fox News to the FBI when asked for comment. The FBI gave no additional comment. A representative for Smith had no comment.
Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report.
