Journalist John Solomon said newly uncovered information suggests the FBI maintained hidden investigative files targeting individuals close to President Donald Trump during the tenure of former FBI Director Christopher Wray, raising concerns about potential civil liberties violations.
Solomon made the remarks during a discussion with commentator Benny Johnson, where the two examined reports that certain politically sensitive investigations were placed into restricted systems rather than the FBI’s standard case management database.
Johnson opened the conversation by questioning reports that FBI Director Kash Patel did not initially have access to the records.
“Line in the lead here, John, that is the most alarming to me is that Kash Patel doesn’t have access to these files, or that they have been scattered to the wind,” Johnson said.
“You know, I was under the hilariously naive, sweet summer child impression here, John, that the FBI director would know what’s going on at the FBI, but that’s turned out to be fundamentally foundationally untrue. So what do you mean when you write here that he that prohibited access kept the FBI from learning about the FBI?”
Solomon responded by explaining how certain investigations were handled differently from normal FBI cases.
“So in these politically sensitive investigations where we now know they were targeting people close to the president, lawyers, like people around the president, were lawyers advising him, advisors, movie makers, journalists,” Solomon said.
“They’re all considered especially special circumstances subjects, meaning they’re supposed to get a higher degree of review before any investigation occurred.”
According to Solomon, those investigations were placed into a special classification system rather than the FBI’s primary case management platform known as Sentinel.
“What really happened, particularly during the Chris Ray era of the FBI, is that they declared these cases prohibited access files, meaning they’re not put into the normal case file system called Sentinel, where the FBI keeps all of its cases,” Solomon said.
Solomon said that under normal circumstances, the FBI director could easily search the system to identify any existing cases.
“And you know where a director should be able to go in and say, hey, I want to know everything about John Solomon and round River, and it should just pop up,” Solomon said.
Instead, Solomon said these investigations were stored separately in classified environments.
“But in fact, they created these cutouts from the system, and they were kept in skiffs, and they were hidden from public view,” Solomon said.
He added that future FBI leadership might not even be aware of the existence of such files unless someone inside the bureau reported them.
“And even a director, if he wasn’t read, in a future, Director wouldn’t know they existed unless a whistle blower came to them and said, Hey, boss, you won’t believe what we did before you were director, we got your phone records,” Solomon said.
“Which is exactly what recently happened with Kash Patel, according to the reporting, you have agents down at the rank and file.”
Johnson reacted with surprise to the suggestion that Patel himself may have been subject to surveillance.
“I’m sorry, John, wait, you’re saying the FBI agents whistle blew to Kash Patel, that they were surveilling Kash,” Johnson said.
Solomon confirmed that whistleblowers had reported the matter.
“They did. Yeah. That’s exactly what happened,” Solomon said.
Johnson then suggested the situation could involve potentially unlawful monitoring.
“So Kash was under potentially illegal surveillance by the FBI,” Johnson said.
Solomon said the full circumstances are still being investigated.
“We’ll have to see what the justification was. Yeah, we don’t know yet. We’re still getting these records to classify,” Solomon said.
He also referenced other individuals whose communications may have been obtained during the same period.
“But it would seem pretty odd that a man got confirmed in 25 to be the FBI director. Obviously, there was no criminal activity, or he wouldn’t have been the FBI director,” Solomon said.
“They were working at it. Same thing with Susie Wiles. She’s never been charged, but they got her phone records that were listening on their phone conversations.”
Solomon also pointed to letters written by Senator Chuck Grassley during the Biden administration, which he said were based on information provided by whistleblowers.
“According to the data that’s now been made public, there is an amazing set of letters that Senator Chuck Grassley wrote during a time when the legacy media ignored all this,” Solomon said.
He said the letters described concerns raised by whistleblowers about activities within the FBI.
“He had these whistleblowers coming to him during the Biden years, saying, You won’t believe what’s going on,” Solomon said.
Solomon added that those letters are now being reviewed as part of a broader investigation into the bureau’s conduct during that period.
“And those letters Kash had said that Senator Grassley wrote, many of them very vague because they were classified information, are now the foundation for what I think is one of the great scandals of American history,” Solomon said.
He suggested that further declassification of records could reveal additional details.
“It’s going to be a civil liberty scandal,” Solomon said.
“And I think when the declassifications are ended, in the next few weeks, we get them all, we’re just going to be scratching our heads saying, I can’t believe the audacity of what the FBI did in the name of trying to get Donald Trump.”
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