Newly declassified FBI memos are raising serious questions about the investigation surrounding Donald Trump — and what they describe looks like a Bureau that was watching his inner circle while doubting its own case.
According to the post, FBI agents used a pen register on Susie Wiles' phone from at least February through May 2023, logging calls and texts involving Trump lawyers, campaign staff and journalists. Wiles — who ran Trump's 2024 campaign and now serves as his White House chief of staff — had her communications mapped for months while the investigation ground on.
The memos also reportedly show that field agents themselves questioned whether there was probable cause for the Mar-a-Lago search — the August 2022 FBI raid on Trump's Florida home — even as leadership pushed ahead. And records indicate Jack Smith's team secretly met with former CIA Director John Brennan, a longtime Trump antagonist, while building its case.
For the administration and its supporters, this is the weaponization case in black and white. They have argued for years that the Biden-era FBI and Justice Department turned federal law enforcement into a political weapon against Trump — and now the Bureau's own declassified paperwork shows agents tapping the phones of his top aide, doubting their own search, and huddling in secret with Brennan. The declassification itself is part of this administration's drive to open the books on how those investigations were run.
The other side isn't conceding. Defenders of the investigation have long maintained it was properly predicated — the Mar-a-Lago warrant was signed by a federal judge, and Smith's final report insisted the evidence supported the charges he brought. They will argue that pen registers are routine investigative tools authorized by courts, and that none of this invalidates the underlying documents case.
But the revelations are fueling renewed scrutiny over how the investigation was conducted — and according to the post, the memos raise more questions than they answer. The Bureau was watching Wiles, doubting itself, and meeting Brennan in secret. The American people are now reading the receipts.