Report: Judges critical of Trump administration approved monitoring of Wiles’ phone
Newly unsealed records identify the judges who authorized the monitoring in 2023, before their clashes with Trump’s second administration.
Former special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained approval to monitor Trump aide Susie Wiles’ phone contacts from two federal judges who later publicly criticized actions of the Trump administration, Just the News reported Oct. 12, citing newly unsealed court records.
U.S. District Judges Beryl Howell and James Boasberg authorized the monitoring in February and April 2023, respectively, during Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents after his first presidential term, according to the outlet. Wiles, now White House chief of staff, then led his Save America political action committee.
Though the records redact the phone user’s identity, Just the News reported that an administration official identified the person as Wiles.
As Zeale News previously reported, White House records released Oct. 5 show the Biden-era FBI monitored Wiles’ call records from at least February through May 2023 using a pen register and trap-and-trace system, which collects information about incoming and outgoing communications.
According to Just the News, Howell, appointed by former President Barack Obama, has ruled against several of Trump’s policy directives in his current term.
In May 2025, Howell struck down Trump’s March executive order targeting law firm Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Just the News reported that the firm was also “involved in the genesis of the Trump-Russia collusion allegations.”
Howell found that Trump’s order unconstitutionally retaliated against the firm for its viewpoints and past legal work, citing the President’s public statements as evidence.
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue [...] but in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’” Howell wrote at the time.
Boasberg, appointed to the federal district court by Obama in 2011, has also sharply criticized the administration’s conduct in court.
Just the News noted that in March 2025, Boasberg temporarily blocked the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. At a hearing days later, Boasberg criticized the language administration lawyers used in court filings as “intemperate and disrespectful.” He later found probable cause to pursue criminal contempt proceedings against administration officials for allegedly disobeying his deportation order.
In response, Trump called Boasberg a “radical left lunatic” in a Truth Social post and pushed for his impeachment.
An appellate court in April directed Boasberg to end the criminal contempt inquiry, with the majority describing it as a “judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a co-equal department.”
Boasberg has also faced impeachment calls from lawmakers for approving orders that barred phone companies from telling Republican senators that investigators had obtained their call records. The orders came as part of Arctic Frost, the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election that formed the basis of Smith’s election-related case against Trump.
>> Controversial federal judge faces articles of impeachment over Arctic Frost scandal <<
Just the News said it remains unclear why Smith’s team sought the monitoring orders in Washington, D.C., rather than Florida, where prosecutors ultimately brought the classified documents case.
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