Newly declassified documents are revealing an even broader picture of the surveillance carried out during the federal investigation of President Donald Trump, showing that FBI agents tracked the travel of Melania Trump and Barron Trump while preparing to search Mar-a-Lago and later monitored the phone activity of Susie Wiles, including her contacts with Trump, his attorneys, campaign advisers and journalists.

The records, released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, shed new light on the investigation internally known as “Plasmic Echo,” the classified-documents probe that ultimately came under the direction of special counsel Jack Smith.

The newly disclosed material follows earlier revelations about surveillance techniques used in investigations involving Trump and his associates. But the latest documents provide new details about the extent to which investigators were monitoring people in Trump’s immediate family and political orbit while building the Mar-a-Lago case.

As FBI officials prepared in 2022 to obtain and execute a search warrant at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, internal communications show that investigators were specifically determining the movements of Melania and Barron Trump, apparently as part of their effort to decide when the search could be conducted.

One FBI planning document listed among the bureau’s tasks: “Finalize FBI understanding of FPOTUS/FLOTUS/minor son’s travel (type of aircraft and specific timeline),”

The same list included final preparations for obtaining the search warrant and coordinating the operation among the FBI, Justice Department and Secret Service in West Palm Beach.

Another document made the intended timing explicit: “Any search warrants would be served after the former President departs Mar a Lago,”

The documents indicate that the sensitive investigation was approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department during the Biden administration.

Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized the investigation following recommendations from senior Justice Department and FBI officials. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in a May 2022 memorandum that the investigation could reach senior figures connected to Trump and could have significant political consequences if it became public before an election.

According to the memo, the investigation “could potentially be disruptive to the democratic process if publicly disclosed prior to an election.”

Wray nevertheless recommended that Garland authorize the investigation, adding a handwritten message at the bottom of the document: “Merrick, I recomend you approve. CW.”

The newly released records also show that before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, at least one agent questioned whether investigators possessed sufficient legal authority to search Trump’s personal office and bedroom and suggested that further discussions with Trump’s attorneys might provide a less intrusive path forward.

The bureau nevertheless proceeded with the search on August 8, 2022. Agents searched numerous areas of the Palm Beach estate, including Trump’s office as well as the bedrooms used by Trump and Melania.

The investigation did not end with the Mar-a-Lago search. The newly released documents reveal extensive monitoring in 2023 of Susie Wiles, who was then helping direct Trump’s political operation as he sought to return to the White House.

Investigators used a pen register and trap-and-trace process connected to Wiles’ cellphone. Such surveillance records metadata — including numbers involved in calls, when calls occurred and their duration — rather than the actual contents of the conversations.

That distinction is significant: the newly released material does not establish that investigators were listening to Wiles’ conversations. Instead, it shows that agents were systematically documenting whom she communicated with and when.

The monitoring reportedly captured Wiles’ contacts with at least 21 attorneys associated with Trump, along with campaign officials, political advisers and at least five journalists. The records also identified communications involving Kash Patel, who was outside government at the time and is now FBI director.

The surveillance ran at least from February through May 2023, according to the documents, with FBI memoranda recording individual calls in striking detail.

Investigators also tracked Wiles’ communications with Trump himself. Bureau records referred to one of Trump’s telephone numbers as the “FPOTUS Vanity Number,” apparently because it was a vanity number spelling a memorable word.

One May 19, 2023, entry recorded: “2:05 pm The FPOTUS Vanity Number called WILES for 16 minutes and 11 seconds.”

The records show that Wiles’ phone was extraordinarily active, with calls sometimes arriving or being placed only minutes apart. On March 9, 2023, investigators recorded 39 calls involving Wiles over the course of the day.

Among the entries from that day were contacts identified only by categories because the names remain redacted.

“6:00pm – Campaign 9 called Wiles, and they spoke for 39 seconds.”

“6:10pm – Lawyer 10 called Wiles for 49 seconds.”

“6:22pm – Wiles attempted to call Campaign 4”

“6:22pm – Wiles called Campaign 8 and they spoke for 56 seconds.”

“6:27pm – Campaign 4 called Wiles.”

“6:39pm – Lawyer 12 alled Wiles for 6 minutes and 50 seconds.”

“8:10pm – The FPOTUS Vanity Number called Wiles for 4 minutes and 1 second.”

Other FBI communications reveal agents following specific interactions between Wiles and Trump’s lawyers.

The bureau’s Washington Field Office noted “that [Lawyer 7] called Wiles at 2:04pm this afternoon for 41 seconds,” according to one March 24, 2023, email.

Another agent documented previous contacts involving the same attorney: “[Lawyer 7] first called Wiles at 2:10pm EST on March 21, and Wiles returned his call for 1 minute and 34 seconds later that day at 2:59pm,” the agent wrote. “These are the only contacts we have observed between the two of them since the PR/TT’s inception.”

Journalists communicating with Wiles also appeared in the surveillance records. The newly disclosed documents indicate that reporters associated with outlets including ABC News, The Washington Post, Politico and Just the News were among those whose contacts with Wiles were recorded.

One February communication from an FBI intelligence analyst specifically noted that “an ABC News reporter called her at 8:48 AM for 2 minutes and 36 seconds.”

The documents suggest that investigators were particularly interested in whom Wiles contacted immediately before and after interactions with the FBI itself.

Wiles sat for an FBI interview in Jacksonville, Florida, in April 2023. Investigators subsequently examined her telephone activity surrounding that interview to determine whom she had contacted.

“On 10 April 2023, WFO [redacted] reviewed WILES’s telephonic activity to determine contacts of interest on the date of her FBI interview,” another memo noted.

On that date, records showed Wiles communicating with Trump and several of his attorneys. She also received calls from journalists with The Washington Post and Politico.

The tactic has drawn attention because law-enforcement officials can use communications metadata to map relationships among individuals even without obtaining the contents of their conversations. A pen register can reveal who is communicating, how frequently and at what times, potentially allowing investigators to reconstruct patterns of contact among attorneys, political advisers and others.

The White House has portrayed the documents as evidence that federal law enforcement crossed the line from legitimate investigation into improper surveillance of Trump’s political operation. Critics of the investigation have also raised concerns about the collection of information involving defense lawyers and journalists.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah reacted to the latest disclosures by calling the surveillance “objectively a bigger scandal than Watergate.”

Smith, however, has consistently denied that his investigations of Trump were motivated by politics. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, he defended his conduct and rejected accusations that he had acted as a partisan prosecutor.

“I am not a politician and I have no partisan loyalty,” Smith said. “My career has been dedicated to serving our country by upholding the rule of law and the core principles upon which our country was founded.”

At the time investigators were monitoring Wiles, the classified-documents inquiry was examining whether Trump had unlawfully retained national-security material after leaving the White House and whether there had been obstruction of government efforts to recover documents from Mar-a-Lago.

The case ultimately resulted in federal charges against Trump, but it never went to trial.

In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified-documents prosecution after concluding that Smith had been unlawfully appointed as special counsel by Garland because his appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

The newly released Plasmic Echo records have now placed the investigative methods used to build that case under renewed scrutiny, particularly because they involved Trump’s family, his lawyers, his campaign operation and journalists during a period when Trump was preparing his campaign to return to the presidency.

The White House sharply condemned the surveillance following Monday’s document release.

“Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement. “Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple. Those responsible must be held accountable.”

{Matzav.com}