The American government has launched an investigation into alleged attempts to pass for Susie Wiles in political communications.
Following a report about the impersonation in The Wall Street Journal the day before, a White House official confirmed to The Associated Press that a probe had been launched.
According to anonymous sources, senators, business leaders, and governors have been contacted by a posing as Wiles, a close friend of President Donald Trump.
Some callers claimed to have used artificial intelligence to mimic Wiles’ voice.
The messages about Wiles should know or did not sound like her in other ways, according to The Wall Street Journal, which was the time of the giveaway. For instance, the newspaper reported that some messages had poor grammar or were too formal.
Additionally, Wiles’s personal phone number was not the one he typically used. However, some of the interviewers who spoke to The Journal claimed to have had a conversation with the impostor before realizing that Wiles herself was the culprit.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director, Kash Patel, issued a statement on Friday denouncing any impersonation campaigns.
“It is our administration officials’ top priority to ensure that they can communicate securely to accomplish the president’s mission,” Patel said.
The bureau earlier this month made it known that “malicious actors” were using “text and voice messaging” to imitate government officials.
According to sources close to the chief of staff, someone hacked into Wiles’ personal mobile phone and gained access to her contacts in this case.
Wiles, a long-time Republican consultant, was born and raised in Florida, where she first held the position of chief of staff for a Republican mayor of Jacksonville.
She has since risen to higher positions in politics, helping to lead Rick Scott’s Republican gubernatorial campaign and later playing a similar role in two of Trump’s presidential campaigns.
She served as Trump’s national campaign manager in 2024 and led his first successful election campaign in Florida in 2016.
On November 7, Trump announced that Wiles would accompany him to the White House as his chief of staff, which oversees the president’s daily affairs. The White House staff also coordinates and supervises policy development.
US media reported that Trump’s presidential campaign announced in August 2024 that it had been hacked by Iran and that sensitive documents had been stolen, despite the FBI’s efforts to establish how her personal contacts got into her impersonator.
Source: Aljazeera
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