U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged messages earlier this year with an unknown individual pretending to be White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a White House official confirmed on Monday.
The incident, first reported by Politico, comes a year after President Donald Trump’s administration launched an investigation into a hack targeting Wiles’ phone.
“We do not comment on national security matters,” Downing Street told NOTUS. One person briefed on the communications said a “few messages” were exchanged after Burnham assumed office but insisted they were “of no significance,” according to Politico.
Shortly after Trump returned to the White House last year, lawmakers and other top administration officials began to receive messages from someone who appeared to be impersonating Wiles. Federal officials launched an investigation and informed Wiles that contacts in her personal cellphone had been hacked, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal at the time.
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But the White House insists that this incident is unrelated to that breach.
“This incident had nothing to do with the Chief of Staff’s devices being hacked,” a White House official told NOTUS.
The most recent subterfuge was discovered after Burnham became suspicious that the messages were illegitimate, and the British embassy in Washington flagged the incident with the White House, according to Politico.
The nature and substance of the messages exchanged between Burnham and the impersonator remains unclear.
Wiles has been one of Trump’s top advisers since the start of his second term. Prior to joining Trump’s presidential campaign in 2023, Wiles was a prominent Republican strategist and lobbyist. She is the first woman to serve as the White House chief of staff.
Burnham was sworn in as Prime Minister on July 20, after winning a special election to parliament in June. Burnham is a member of the Labour Party, a major center-left political party in the U.K. He replaced former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had resigned.
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