Federal authorities probe effort to impersonate White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles

US senators, governors, top business executives and other well-known figures have received text messages and phone calls from a person who claimed to be Susie Wiles.

Susie Wiles (R) with Donald Trump in the White House. Picture: AFP.

Federal authorities are investigating a clandestine effort to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to people familiar with the matter, after an unknown individual reached out to prominent Republicans and business executives pretending to be her.

In recent weeks, senators, governors, top US business executives and other well-known figures have received text messages and phone calls from a person who claimed to be Wiles, the people familiar with the messages said.

But the messages weren’t from Wiles – and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the White House are trying to figure out who is behind the effort and what their goal is, according to some of the people. FBI officials have told the White House they don’t believe a foreign nation is involved, some of the people said.

“The White House takes the cybersecurity of all staff very seriously, and this matter continues to be investigated,” a White House spokeswoman said.

“The FBI takes all threats against the president, his staff, and our cybersecurity with the utmost seriousness,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. “Safeguarding our administration officials’ ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president’s mission is a top priority.” Wiles has told associates that her cellphone contacts were hacked, according to some of the people, giving the impersonator access to the private phone numbers of some of the country’s most influential people. The phone in question is her personal cellphone, not her government one, the people said.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’s personal phone appears to have been hacked. Picture; AFP.

Some of the calls featured a voice that sounded like Wiles, people who heard them said. Government officials think the impersonator used artificial intelligence to imitate Wiles’s voice, some of the people said.

In some of the text messages, people received requests that they initially believed to be official. One lawmaker, for example, was asked by the impersonator to assemble a list of individuals who could be pardoned by the president.

It became clear to some of the lawmakers that the requests were suspicious when the impersonator began asking questions about Trump that Wiles should have known the answers to – and in one case, when the impersonator asked for a cash transfer, some of the people said. In many cases, the impersonator’s grammar was broken and the messages were more formal than the way Wiles typically communicates, people who have received the messages said. The calls and text messages also didn’t come from Wiles’s phone number.

US intelligence agencies have looked into the impersonation, some of the people said. Members of Congress have been notified about the campaign to impersonate Wiles, some of the people said.

Susie Wiles is Donald Trump’s closest adviser. Picture: AFP.

It is unclear how the impersonator was able to get access to Wiles’s phone contacts, some of the people said.

Wiles is widely viewed as Trump’s closest adviser. She managed his presidential campaign before becoming White House chief of staff, the first woman to serve in the high-profile position. Wiles has a deep bench of contacts in Republican circles, both in Washington and in Florida, where she spent years as a political powerbroker.

Wiles has urged some of her contacts to disregard the messages, and she has apologised for the inconvenience. But some of the people who were contacted have engaged with the impersonator before realising it wasn’t her. Many others have reached out to Wiles, asking if she is behind the messages before responding, some of the people said.

The impersonator has continued sending messages in recent days, including while Wiles was out of the country earlier this month with Trump in the Middle East. Some White House advisers have privately joked about how busy the impersonator seems to be.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Iranian operatives hacked into Wiles’s email account, according to people familiar with the matter, and gained access to a research dossier on Trump’s running mate, JD Vance.

Dow Jones