'Deeply alarming': Patel goes on firing spree after revealing Biden FBI accessed his private phone records

The FBI has reportedly fired a slew of employees at the direction of Dir. Kash Patel following his revelation to Reuters on Wednesday that the bureau obtained phone records for him and for White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in 2022 and 2023 while they were private citizens.

Four individuals briefed on the terminations — more of which are expected — told CNN that the approximately 10 newly fired FBI employees were involved in the lawfare waged against President Donald Trump over retention of government documents at Mar-a-Lago.

'I am in shock.'

"It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight," Patel said in a statement.

According to Patel, operatives of the Biden FBI, led by then-Director Christopher Wray, not only obtained "toll records" for his and Wiles' private phone calls, as it had with Republican lawmakers in Operation Arctic Frost, but attempted to hide that they had done so in requesting court approval.

An individual with knowledge of the situation told the New York Times that some of the fired FBI employees — reportedly including support personnel, agents, and supervisors — were involved in that effort.

Toll records provide investigators with identifying information of callers along with the date, time, location, and length of a call.

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Susie Wiles. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images

Reuters, citing two FBI officials, reported that in at least one instance, the bureau sought more than just toll records and taped a call between Wiles and her attorney in 2023. While Wiles' attorney was reportedly aware that the call was being recorded and provided consent, Wiles was allegedly unaware.

Wiles told associates, "I am in shock," reported Axios.

A source familiar with the matter told CBS News that Wiles' records were reviewed in connection with the Trump classified documents case and that Patel's records were not subpoenaed in connection with Arctic Frost, the investigation that morphed into former special counsel Jack Smith's federal election case against Trump regarding the 2020 election.

Blaze News has reached out to the FBI for comment.

Other Trump allies may have been surveilled by the FBI, and the latest revelations may be just "the tip of the iceberg," Trump officials familiar with the investigation told Axios.

The FBI Agents Association rushed to condemn the firings of those allegedly involved in the apparent spying operation, claiming the ousters "weaken the bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals."

Anthony Coley, former director of public affairs for the Biden Justice Department who is now on MSNOW, complained to Axios that Patel "is on a singular mission: to find something, anything for which to prosecute Jack Smith."