UK prime minister Andy Burnham exchanges texts with impostor posing as White House aide Susie Wiles

Impersonation of the White House chief of staff

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged text messages with an individual impersonating White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Burnham used his personal mobile phone rather than an official government device to conduct the correspondence. The exchanges took place both before and after Burnham assumed the premiership on 20 July 2026, following his victory in the Makerfield by-election on 18 June to succeed Keir Starmer. Wiles serves as one of Donald Trump's primary aides, having co-managed his 2024 presidential campaign before leading White House staff in 2025. Burnham grew suspicious of the exchange after several messages, broke off contact, and reported the incident to British security authorities. Officials familiar with the matter stated that the messages conveyed no substantive government information.

Diplomatic alerts and Downing Street response

The British Embassy in Washington raised immediate concerns with the White House upon learning of the correspondence. Downing Street declined to provide details regarding the contents of the messages or name the specific intelligence agency handling the inquiry.

We do not comment on national security matters.

United States officials confirmed to British counterparts that the interaction was not caused by a breach of Wiles's devices. The incident occurred as Burnham manages early diplomatic relations with the White House. Although Burnham has spoken with Trump by telephone, where Trump criticized British policies on fossil fuels and immigration, the two leaders have not yet met in person.

Cabinet contact leaks and past targeting

Following the disclosure of the messaging exchange, the personal mobile phone numbers of three British Cabinet ministers appeared published on the internet. The exposed phone numbers belonged to Defense Secretary Wes Streeting, Justice Secretary Alex Norris, and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant.

The incident matches earlier fraudulent operations directed at senior political figures in Washington. In May 2025, the FBI and the White House investigated an impostor who posed as Wiles to message US senators, state governors, and corporate executives after Wiles noted that contacts on her personal phone had been compromised. Two months later, the State Department opened an inquiry into an impostor posing as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who reached out to three foreign ministers. Federal authorities warned that malicious actors increasingly deploy artificial intelligence tools to mimic government leadership.

Prior hoaxes and communications breaches

Senior British politicians have repeatedly encountered fraudulent communications from impostors. In 2024, then Foreign Secretary David Cameron took part in a video call and sent text messages to someone impersonating former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko before realizing the deception. In 2018, then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held an 18-minute telephone call with a hoaxer pretending to be the prime minister of Armenia, discussing Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

Digital communications lapses have also affected the Trump administration. In March 2025, a journalist was added to an encrypted Signal chat group in which Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz coordinated military strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen. A Pentagon review concluded in December 2025 that sharing classified operational details in the unsecured group chat endangered deployed American service members.