FBI investigating efforts to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles

The FBI is investigating an apparent impersonator who pretended to be the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in texts and calls to her contacts, including prominent Republicans.

Wiles has privately informed colleagues that the contacts in her personal cellphone were hacked, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, and has been asking people to disregard messages and calls that aren’t coming from her phone number. Wiles also has a government phone that wasn’t affected by the hack.

The impersonator texted one lawmaker for a list of people who should be pardoned, a request that was initially taken to be real. In another case, Wiles’ impersonator asked for a cash transfer, according to the report.

Some requests came off as suspicious as they contained questions about Donald Trump that Wiles would know, and had broken grammar in other cases. But some said that they had engaged with Wiles’ impersonator before they realized it wasn’t her.

Contacts who spoke to the Journal anonymously said that some of the calls came from a voice that sounded like Wiles, leading some to believe that an impersonator is using artificial intelligence to mimic Wiles’ voice.

Wiles served as co-chair of Trump’s presidential campaign and was deeply embedded in Florida politics as a lobbyist before she joined Trump’s team.

In a statement, the FBI director, Kash Patel, said the FBI is investigating the matter “with the utmost seriousness”.

“Safeguarding our administration officials’ ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president’s mission is a top priority,” he said.

The White House has still been grappling with the fallout of the so-called “Signalgate” scandal, when senior Trump officials discussed sensitive military plans on a Signal group chat in March that included Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.

Earlier this month, Trump demoted his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who mistakenly added Goldberg to the group chat. A government oversight group has since sued the Trump administration over the potential deletion of sensitive conversations, which could violate federal recordkeeping laws.

The US president has largely dismissed privacy concerns and said that Signalgate was “not a big deal”.

Reporting has also revealed that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has shared details about a Yemen strike on a separate group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.