Washington Examiner investigations editor Sarah Bedford said the FBI engaged in a “pretty serious thing” in its surveillance of President Donald Trump and his 2024 campaign.
The FBI obtained phone records belonging to Kash Patel and Susie Wiles when both were private citizens from investigations tied to Trump ahead of the 2024 election. Bedford said the FBI was being “even more aggressive in surveilling conservatives” or anyone connected to Trump’s campaign under former President Joe Biden’s leadership.
“And I think one of the reasons why stuff like this doesn’t break through is because people have largely accepted that the FBI was aggressively going after Donald Trump, but because he won reelection, people are, I guess, sort of willing to write that off,” Bedford said on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Wednesday, guest-hosted by Mark Davis.
“But it’s a pretty serious thing that the FBI was able to go after the now-FBI Director Kash Patel and the now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during the heat of a presidential campaign,” she said.
Bedford added it’s not clear why the Justice Department needed to see who Wiles was speaking to and texting as she was running Trump’s campaign. She also said there are reports the FBI “listened in” on a phone call Wiles conducted with her lawyers.
Bedford concluded it’s not entirely surprising “in this day and age” that this isn’t discussed in the news more, but it is still “shocking.”
DOJ QUIETLY CLOSES AUTOPEN INVESTIGATION TARGETING BIDEN AND AIDES
The Washington Examiner obtained partially redacted emails that include internal FBI communications from Aug. 3, 2022, just five days before the agency’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, suggesting the search was tethered to the timing of when Biden would be briefed about it.
The email communications appear to contradict the Biden administration’s claim that Biden had no prior knowledge of the search of Trump’s property.
The FBI fired additional agents in February who had worked on an investigation into Trump, specifically those who helped investigate Trump’s unlawful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, for which he was later indicted by the then-DOJ. The FBI had found additional documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate despite an attorney for Trump signing a statement that allegedly verified he was no longer holding onto any classified documents.