Declassified Records Detail FBI Tracking in Trump Documents Probe

Newly declassified records released by the White House on Monday provide fresh detail about the federal classified-documents investigation that later came under special counsel Jack Smith’s direction. The documents describe how the FBI tracked travel involving members of the Trump family, including Melania Trump and Barron Trump, while preparing for the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. They also show that investigators monitored the cellphone activity of Susie Wiles, now White House chief of staff, during key months of the inquiry.

The records identify the investigation as “Plasmic Echo”, the probe into whether Donald Trump improperly retained classified documents after leaving office. According to the declassified material, operational planning for the Mar-a-Lago search included detailed efforts to determine the travel schedule of the former president, the former first lady and their son. One internal FBI email thread dated June 1, 2022, stated that any search warrants would be served only after Trump had departed the property.

Planning emails from late May 2022 included pre-raid checklists directing agents to “finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel,” including the type of aircraft and a specific timeline. The FBI ultimately executed the search warrant at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate on Aug. 8, 2022. Records previously reported by Fox News Digital said agents entered shortly before 9 a.m. and began the search around 10:30 a.m.

The warrant authorized the search of Trump’s “45 Office,” storage rooms and other locations used by Trump and his staff where boxes or documents might be kept. Agents removed thousands of documents, including more than 100 with classification markings ranging from confidential to secret and top secret. Those materials were found in Trump’s office and a storage room, according to the records.

Internal debate over strategy

The newly released documents also show that the investigation was approved at senior levels of federal law enforcement in March 2022. FBI Director Christopher Wray obtained Attorney General Merrick Garland’s sign-off to open a full “Sensitive Investigative Matter” focused on classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

At the same time, the records indicate there was disagreement inside the government over how to proceed. Investigators at the FBI’s Washington Field Office pushed back against the Justice Department’s approach, warning prosecutors that they did not yet have probable cause for a raid on Trump’s residence. They also complained that spending five weeks focused on establishing probable cause for a search warrant was undermining broader efforts to recover the records.

Monitoring of Susie Wiles

Another major element in the declassified records concerns Susie Wiles. The documents say Biden administration law enforcement officials monitored her cellphone activity between February and May 2023 using a real-time tool that logged incoming and outgoing calls, missed calls, text messages and voicemails.

According to the records, investigators cataloged Wiles’ contacts with more than a dozen defense attorneys representing Trump and others tied to the case. The logs also included communications with campaign advisers, political aides, Trump Organization employees, numbers linked to Trump’s personal office and journalists. The documents further indicate that investigators monitored her phone before, during and after formal witness interviews with Jack Smith’s prosecutors and FBI agents, including an April 7, 2023, interview in Jacksonville, Florida.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis sharply criticized the tactics described in the records, calling them “a disgraceful abuse of government power” and arguing that spying on political opponents represented a weaponization of law enforcement.

The disclosures arrive days after Smith faced a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over tactics used in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election. That case, known as “Arctic Frost”, involved collection of phone-record information tied to Republican lawmakers. The newly released documents, however, relate specifically to Plasmic Echo, the classified-documents investigation that culminated in the Mar-a-Lago search.