President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has long been viewed as a rare source of stability in a White House that often appears governed by chaos. Yet according to a new report, one of the ways she has maintained that equilibrium is by indulging Trump's desire not to hear unwelcome information — including any preparation for the possibility that Democrats would reclaim Congress and investigate him. That dynamic speaks to the core tension of the chief of staff job, a role traditionally built around controlling what information reaches the president and managing the president's political exposure.

According to a Wednesday report by CNN's Kevin Liptak, Kristen Holmes and Alayna Treene, "White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in particular, would often shut down conversations regarding a likely onslaught of oversight probes into those operating at the highest levels of the administration, one of the advisers said, believing it could pull focus away from the campaign."

The report continued: "She would always say, 'We are going to win and we're going to put all our energy into winning,' the adviser remarked of Wiles' attitude in the months leading up to the midterm elections."

The journalists added, "Other White House officials argued that Wiles had privately told the White House Counsel's office to prepare for what Democrats may do, even as she told staff to 'keep their eye on the prize' — as one of them characterized it."

The stakes of that behind-the-scenes preparation are considerable: whichever party controls a chamber of Congress wields the committee gavels and subpoena power through which oversight investigations of a sitting administration are conventionally pursued.

Wiles' standing in the White House has grown increasingly unstable in the wake of the Republicans' historic midterm losses, with some of the most prominent far-right influencers blaming her strategizing for the party's poor showing at the polls on Tuesday. Presidents' parties have historically tended to lose seats in first midterm elections, but the most immediate recriminations over this year's results have centered on Wiles and come from voices inside Trump's own political coalition.

"Susie Wiles should be fired tomorrow!" demanded white nationalist podcast host Nick Fuentes in a rant late Tuesday night, as reported Wednesday by The Daily Beast's William Vaillancourt. "You're going to have a 260-seat Democrat majority in the House, a 55-seat Democrat majority, and these deputies for the White House were in Bosnia while this bloodbath was going on, making money from foreign governments."

He added, "[Wiles] should be fired immediately."

"Vance and Rubio should never get close to the nomination in 2028," Fuentes said. "That's the point. That's why we're doing this. These people should be investigated. They should go to jail. They should lose their jobs. They should have no political future."

Wiles herself has reportedly been in a state of panic since the midterm elections, at one point calling a crisis meeting last month as she perceived many of Trump's political allies abandoning him.

"Susie Wiles summoned her top advisers to her West Wing office just after 8:15 am Friday for a crisis meeting as a wave of stories about Trump allies cashing in on their access threatened to swamp the White House," The Daily Mail reported at the time. Whether Trump ultimately keeps Wiles in the West Wing, and how the administration engages with the oversight push its own advisers described anticipating, now stand among the immediate questions for the White House in the wake of the election results.