FBI Probes Mysterious Texts Impersonating White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating a suspicious text message campaign that has been impersonating White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to a recent report. The imposter has reportedly fired off text messages and placed phone calls to Republican lawmakers, governors, and business executives in recent weeks, pretending to be Wiles.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the individual behind the campaign is using artificial intelligence to mimic Wiles's voice, making it difficult for recipients to distinguish between the genuine message and a scam. The messages were suspicious because they didn't come from Wiles's phone number, asked questions about President Trump that she would have known, were more formal than usual, and contained broken grammar.

The FBI has informed the White House that there is no indication of foreign interference in the campaign, but officials are taking the incident seriously. "The White House takes the cybersecurity of all staff very seriously, and this matter continues to be investigated," a White House spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, the FBI warned of an ongoing malicious text and voice messaging campaign that has been occurring since April. Actors have impersonated senior US officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior US federal or state government officials and their contacts.

The malicious actors have sent text messages and AI-generated voice messages — techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively — that claim to come from a senior US official in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts. FBI Director Kash Patel said that the bureau "takes all threats against the president, his staff, and our cybersecurity with the utmost seriousness."

"Safeguarding our administration officials' ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president's mission is a top priority," Patel added. Susie Wiles has reportedly told associates that the contacts on her personal cellphone are the ones that have been hacked, and she has urged them to disregard the strange messages — which have been sent as recently as when Trump and Wiles were in the Middle East two weeks ago.

Wiles' email account was reportedly hacked by Iranian operatives targeting the Trump campaign during last year's presidential campaign. Three members of Iran's notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were indicted over the hacking last September. The White House and FBI did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment on this incident.