The Secret Service, responsible in particular for the protection of the President of the United States, erased text messages from several agents sent on the day of the assault on Congress in Washington on January 6, 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump.
Joseph Cuffari, Inspector General of the Department of National Security, said in a letter released Thursday to congressional leaders that he had difficulty obtaining Secret Service records dating back to January 5 and 6, 2021.
These messages could be crucial to investigations by the House of Representatives and the Department of Justice to determine whether the former Republican president and his close advisers encouraged the deadly assault on the Capitol, in an attempt to prevent the certification of the victory of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in the November 2020 ballot.
Secret Service agents were with Donald Trump that day and with Vice President Mike Pence, who had been hiding in the Capitol after pro-Trump activists called for him to be hanged.
“The department has notified us that numerous messages from the United States Secret Service (USSS), dated January 5 and 6, 2021, have been erased as part of a device replacement program,” Joseph Cuffari wrote in his mail, revealed by The Intercept and then published by Politico and CNN.
The Secret Service denies the charges
“The USSS erased these text messages after the OIG (Office of the Inspector General) requested the records of electronic communications” for the review of the events of January 6, he continued. In addition, says Joseph Cuffari, the ministry dragged its feet in handing over other documents requested by the OIG.
In a statement released hours after the CNN and Politico stories, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi dismissed Joseph Cuffari’s accusations, saying the agents’ phones were reset as part of a planned replacement program. started prior to the OIG’s request six weeks after the assault.
“The Secret Service reported to the Inspector General’s Office the loss of data from some phones but confirmed to the OIG that none of the text messages they were looking for were lost during this migration,” it said. he added.