REPORT: FBI Secret Stash of 'Ghost' Files Shows How Difficult Transparency and Oversight Has Become

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel has repeatedly affirmed his mission as director: "Let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI."

Efforts to thwart this continue to come from outside and within the agency; most recently, Retuers revealed that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Director Patel had their phone records collected by the FBI in 2023, during "Operation Arctic Frost." This information was labeled "prohibited," which hid them from routine search and scrutiny not only by FBI officials, but Congress. Patel fired over 10 agents involved in these covert acts, and is now seeking to end this practice of "prohibited" categories, which appears to be engineered to not only avoid transparency, but to encourage FBI rogue operations to flourish.

According to Matt Taibbi of Racket News, Patel recently commissioned a task force to dig up a separate set of books that had been designated "prohibited access."

FBI's Wiles/Patel Spying Scandal Reportedly Gets Even Worse With New Revelation About Who Was Recorded

In mounting this task force, Patel might not have realized that he is going further down what has increasingly become a secrecy rabbit hole.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation task force has begun excavating the separate set of books FBI keeps using an inaccessible “prohibited access” file designation, according to multiple government sources. Though an internal fight over how to handle the files continues, embattled FBI Director Kash Patel has assigned personnel to examine decades of hidden history, Racket News has learned, with some files already turned over to Congress.
“This is it — the deep state,” one of the sources said.
Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, whose work with whistleblowers and pressure across years was key to prying prohibited access files loose, expressed cautious optimism.
“If it weren’t for whistleblower disclosures to my office, the very existence of the FBI using ‘Prohibited Access’ files for some investigations would have remained in the dark,” he said. “I’ve asked Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel to turn over certain Prohibited Access records to Congress. I’ve received some, but am still waiting on others. I urge the DOJ and FBI to keep digging – which previous administrations apparently didn’t make any effort to do – so that the facts can come to light. The FBI’s secret stash of records is scandalous.”

Scandalous doesn't even scratch the surface. This is horrifying and worse than the Mitrokhin/KGB filing system. These are not just secretive documents. They are documents that, when the rubber meets the road, never existed in the first place.

Files given a prohibited access designation are not merely secret. They are “ghosts” which “do not exist,” records rigged to return false negatives when searched for in the FBI’s SENTINEL system. They’re digital descendants of paper records that as far back as Richard Nixon’s presidency were kept in locked offices, accessible to just a few officials, typically at the deputy director level and above. Currently, the number of people with the ability to access the files can be counted on one hand.
The implications of the nation’s chief federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence organization having kept a separate, non-searchable filing system are mind-boggling.
“It’s not like turning over a rock and finding a few bugs,” said retired FBI Supervisory Analyst George Hill. “It’s like turning over a manhole and finding a whole city.”
“You don’t run a Constitutional republic on secret files,” added legal analyst Margot Cleveland.

These files were kept secret from the majority of the FBI, even high-ranking officials, and fully hidden from any Congressional oversight. It is impossible to police the police and ensure transparency when an entire nexus of operations not only appears opaque, but non-existent.

According to Taibbi, the files span at least 25 years. Starting around 1999, they cover multiple administrations and involve information from both political parties.

They include potentially hundreds of case numbers and involve off-books activities, such as surveillance and disruption efforts tied to investigations like Arctic Frost (related to post-2020 election matters) and the Trump-Russia probe.
No formal rules govern the transfer of access across administrations; instead, it's reportedly maintained as an informal, oral tradition among a small circle of senior FBI officials, insulated from lower-level agents, political appointees, Congress, and even the White House.

Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.

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