The FBI, under President Joe Biden, subpoenaed the phone records of Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, and FBI Director Kash Patel when they were private citizens.
The subpoenas came out when Smith investigated Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and hiding classified information at Mar-a-Lago.
The most significant part of the story, which Reuters buried, is that two FBI officials said that the agency wiretapped and recorded a call between Wiles and her attorney in 2023.
The attorney supposedly consented to the FBI recording the call.
According to Marc Caputo of Axios, the lawyer denies the claim, saying he never gave permission for anyone to record the phone call.
“If I ever pulled a stunt like that I wouldn’t – and shouldn’t – have a license to practice law,” the lawyer told Caputo. “I’m as shocked as Susie.”
Wiles reportedly told people close to her that the news left her “in shock.”
It seems Wiles believes the attorney.
Caputo correctly does not name the lawyer since “he and his former client believe he is being fairly accused.”
The news is serious because it’s not the same as the tracking Smith and his cronies performed on eight Republican senators and 400 Republicans.
The tracking, known as toll analysis, only shows the who, when, and where of the communication. It does not show content.
Tapping and recording phone calls obviously reveals content.
To make matters worse, the phone call was between Wiles and her attorney.
Attorney-client privilege applies only when the attorney is acting in an attorney-client capacity, a third party is present, the parties are facilitating a crime, or confidentiality is waived.
The American Bar Association does not consider one-party recording unethical in all cases.
However, one-party recording is frowned upon by law, even if the call occurred in a state that does not require two-party/all-party consent.
We do not know where the call took place, but if Wiles was located in Virginia running Trump’s campaign, only one party would need to consent.
If the lawyer is telling the truth, which I believe he is, that means the FBI not only recorded a call between a client and her attorney, but potentially did so without a warrant.
It’s extremely rare for a judge to issue a warrant between a client and an attorney due to privilege.
Yet, considering the scope of Smith’s investigation, a judge might have issued one. Privilege does not exist if the client used the lawyer to enable or further a crime or fraud, or if the lawyer took part in those crimes.
What else happened? How many phone calls did the FBI record with or without a warrant? If agents received a warrant, which judge signed off on them and why?
We likely won’t ever know the extent of the Arctic Frost investigation and Mar-a-Lago Raid. The corruption runs so deep with too many pieces.
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