Burnham Exchanges Messages With Impersonator Posing As Trump Chief Of Staff

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, exchanged messages with a person posing as Susie Wiles, chief of staff to United States President Donald Trump, before officials became suspicious that the contact was illegitimate.

The security breach, first reported by Politico, involved a brief exchange of messages between Burnham and the person claiming to be Wiles.

According to officials cited by Politico, only a “few messages” were exchanged before the contact was identified as suspicious.

Downing Street has declined to comment on the incident, with a government spokesperson saying, “We do not comment on national security matters.”

It is understood that the communication was conducted entirely through text messages, with no phone or video conversation taking place.

Sources said “no messages of significance” were exchanged and that the communication was “quickly reported to the appropriate authorities” after concerns were raised about its authenticity.

The incident comes amid growing concerns over the use of impersonation and compromised communication channels to target senior government officials.

Wiles, a key ally of Trump, was herself targeted in a phone-hacking incident investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The BBC previously reported that her personal phone was hacked in May last year, after an impersonator or group of impersonators used her contacts file to send messages to senior US officials.

The targets reportedly included US senators, governors and prominent business executives.

The impersonation operation was directed at Wiles’ personal phone rather than her government-issued device.

Wiles was also among officials targeted in 2024 by a cyber-espionage unit linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful branch of Iran’s armed forces.

The Burnham incident is not the first time a senior British government official has been targeted by an impersonator.

In 2024, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) confirmed that then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron had been targeted in a hoax call involving a person pretending to be former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Cameron also exchanged text messages with the impersonator.

The former foreign secretary had previously dealt extensively with Poroshenko, who served as Ukraine’s president from 2014 to 2019, including during meetings at international summits.

The FCDO subsequently disclosed details of the exchange, saying it feared the incident could be “manipulated”.

Two other senior UK ministers were targeted in a similar incident in 2022 by an individual posing as then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

The calls, made through Microsoft Teams, were received by then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Wallace at the time blamed what he described as Russian “dirty tricks” for the attempted deception.

A Ministry of Defence source said the video call was “fairly sophisticated” and had been routed through another government department, increasing its credibility.

The latest incident involving Burnham highlights the continuing security risks faced by political leaders and senior officials as sophisticated impersonation techniques are increasingly used to gain access to sensitive communications.