Jack Smith’s Team Sought Wiles Phone Monitoring Orders Without Disclosing Lawyer Contacts to the Judges

Unsealed court records show that former special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained permission from two federal judges in Washington, D.C., to monitor the phone of Susie Wiles, then leading Trump’s SAVE America PAC fundraising operation and now White House chief of staff. The applications did not disclose that the monitoring would track contacts with criminal defense lawyers. The results captured calls involving lawmakers, other lawyers, and journalists.

The White House Government Transparency Task Force released the documents Monday. They include two applications by Smith’s team for a pen register and tap-and-trace device on Wiles’s phone. Such devices record the numbers called, the times and locations of calls, and their duration, but not the content of the conversations. Both applications were filed in the District of Columbia in 2023, after Trump announced his candidacy and while Smith investigated allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The classified documents case itself was based in Florida.

The first application, submitted in February 2023, stated that historical telephone records from AT&T showed the phone “was used to communicate with subjects and witnesses shortly before and/or after they spoke with the Government in connection with this criminal investigation.” The following day, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell signed an order approving it. Howell wrote that the government had certified the information was relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. Howell, appointed by President Barack Obama, has ruled against several Trump administration actions. She struck down an executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, which was involved in the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion allegations, finding it violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. The Justice Department later sought her recusal in that matter, citing her remarks in January 6 cases; she refused. Howell also pierced attorney-client privilege between Trump and lawyer Evan Corcoran under the crime-fraud exception in the classified documents probe and enforced a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account, fining the company $350,000 for slow compliance. As chief judge of the D.C. court from 2016 to 2023, she oversaw grand juries used by special counsel Robert Mueller and investigators examining efforts related to the 2020 election.

A second application to extend the monitoring was filed in April 2023 and approved by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. Boasberg has issued rulings critical of Trump administration policies, including a decision against the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for certain deportations. He found probable cause to pursue criminal contempt against administration officials after two deportation flights continued to El Salvador despite his order to turn them around; an appellate court later directed him to end the contempt inquiry, describing it as an improper judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a coequal department. Boasberg previously led the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where he made decisions related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump-Russia allegations, including a limited sanction for one team member and the renewal of FISA authorities. Several lawmakers have called for his impeachment over his actions in Trump-related cases.

Smith’s written requests to the judges did not state that the monitoring would secretly track contacts with criminal defense lawyers. The resulting data included calls to and from lawmakers, lawyers, and journalists. There is no definitive public explanation in the released records for why applications tied to a Florida-based investigation were submitted to judges in the District of Columbia. Prior declassified materials released by the same White House task force showed that Smith’s team used similar pen-register methods on Wiles’s phone to track activity involving Trump’s legal defense team, journalists, and campaign advisers during the classified documents probe.

Sen. Chuck Grassley has released additional records from the Senate Judiciary Committee describing interactions between Smith’s team and Judges Howell and Boasberg in early 2023. Those records include notes stating that Howell “liked” the team’s approach to executive privilege litigation and that Boasberg was scheduled for a meeting. Grassley has described Smith’s broader investigative tactics, including subpoenas for toll records of members of Congress, as an abuse of authority. Smith has defended the investigations as nonpartisan and based on the evidence developed.