The Secret Service turned over just one text exchange to the Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog after it asked for more than a month’s worth of records — raising more questions about the agency’s ability and willingness to retain texts related to last year’s Capitol riot, according to a new report.
A letter to the House select committee investigating the riot obtained by CNN revealed that after DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari in June of last year requested messages sent and received by 24 Secret Service personnel between Dec. 7, 2020, and Jan. 8, 2021, the agency only provided one conversation.
“The Secret Service submitted the responsive records it identified, namely, a text message conversation from former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to former Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Thomas Sullivan requesting assistance on January 6, 2021, and advised the agency did not have any further records responsive to the DHS OIG’s request for text messages,” Secret Service Assistant Director Ronald Rowe wrote.
While DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari requested more than a month’s worth of messages, the Security Service turned over only one exchange. AFP via Getty ImagesOn Tuesday, committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) also revealed that the panel had only received “one text message” and emphasized it would be “pursuing more information as a committee soon.”
“In their letter, they gave no indication that they have secured the phones in question and done some forensic work with them. That’s something we want to know,” Lofgren told MSNBC. “This obviously, this doesn’t look good. Coincidences can happen but we really need to get to the bottom of this and get a lot more information than we have currently.”
The new report emerged one week after the IG said text messages exchanged around the time of the riot had been deleted during a data migration.
A text from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to Secret Service Assistant Director Anthony Ornato appears above the select committee on July 12, 2022. Getty ImagesThe Secret Service initially claimed none of the text messages were lost during the upgrade period and noted that the initial request for communications was made in February 2021, a month after the migration began.
However, a separate CNN report claimed Congress first informed the agency that it needed to preserve and produce records related to the riot on Jan. 16, 2021, and again on Jan. 25, 2021 — two days before the data migration began.
Over the weekend, Lofgren revealed that the committee had expected to receive all the deleted text messages by Tuesday.
The Secret Service has blamed a data migration as the reason for the lack of information, drawing skepticism from the House committee. AP“We need all the texts from the 5th and the 6th of January,” Lofgren said. “I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be. But we need to get this information to get the full picture.”
While the Secret Service did provide “thousands of pages of documents” regarding cellphone use, agency policy and planning records, it did not include any of the requested texts.
“Any message that was not uploaded by the employee as a government record would have been lost during the migration,” a Secret Service official told CNN.
The Secret Service’s actions have led to more questions for the committee investigating last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. AFP via Getty ImagesIt was not immediately clear how many messages are missing.
