President Joe Biden is alleged to have overseen spying on Susie Wiles, the former lobbyist who now serves as President Donald Trump's chief of staff — one of the most senior posts in the West Wing — according to documents released by the White House. On Thursday, Republicans officially condemned the alleged surveillance — with one senator suggesting it might be time to eliminate the FBI entirely.

"Newly released documents reveal the extent of the FBI's monitoring of President Donald Trump's now-chief of staff Susie Wiles, showing investigators tracked phone metadata reflecting her contacts with attorneys, journalists, campaign officials, Trump Organization personnel and Secret Service contacts," wrote Fox News' Ashley J. DiMella on Thursday.

"Documents released Monday by the White House detail 'Plasmic Echo,' the investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents and other presidential records that led to the FBI's 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago and later included possible obstruction of the investigation," she added. "The records show the FBI tracked Wiles' phone activity from at least February through May 2023, cataloging who called her, whom she called, when the calls occurred and how long they lasted."

Those records, as described, consist of call metadata — who called whom, when, and for how long — rather than the content of the conversations themselves. Metadata of that kind has been a recurring flashpoint in surveillance debates because, without recording a single word, it can chart a person's circle of contacts and patterns of communication.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) suggested that the revelations about the FBI monitoring Wiles under Biden justify potentially dismantling the bureau altogether.

"Not sure how the FBI survives this," Lee wrote. "Or whether it should. Maybe it's time to start over."

The FBI traces its origins to a 1908 investigative unit created within the Justice Department, and restructuring proposals — including post-Sept. 11 calls to split its intelligence-gathering from its law-enforcement duties — have surfaced periodically since.

"Unbelievable," Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) posted on X. "This makes Watergate look like child's play. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I'll be requesting that the Chairman hold a hearing on this immediately."

Whether the committee's chairman takes up that request is the most concrete next step to watch, and an early measure of how far congressional Republicans intend to pursue the issue.

House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) wrote: "cc: The Fake News Why aren't you talking about this? Biden's FBI spent months secretly tracking Susie Wiles' phone, logging calls with lawyers, journalists, campaign aides, and even Secret Service. The Democrats are CROOKS!"

Elected GOP officials were not alone in criticizing Democrats. Jared Wise, a former Jan. 6 defendant and Justice Department employee, argued on X that "the abuse of J6 defendants is at least 1000x whatever happened here, but not a single person in the DC uni-party establishment has the courage to look."

He added, "History will show the J6 persecutions to be among the greatest civil rights violations in US history, and the people currently running DC to be among the most cowardly."

Some offered a contrasting take, arguing that the outrage was overblown. Journalist John Harwood posted on X, "fake outrage intended to fool those who don't know any better."

Wiles has long been regarded as one of the more level-headed members of Trump's staff, staying on board to manage his Oval Office even after receiving a cancer diagnosis. That the target of the 2023 monitoring now runs the president's day-to-day operation is part of why the newly released records have become a present-day political fight rather than a historical footnote.