By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Secret Service deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021 shortly after they were requested by oversight officials investigating the agency’s response to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to the agency watchdog.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general, which has oversight of the Secret Service, sent a letter to the House of Representatives and Senate Homeland Security Committees investigating the Jan. 6 riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The letter, dated July 13, said the inspector general had been notified by the DHS that “many” messages had been erased by the Secret Service due to a device-replacement program after the watchdog asked the agency for records related to its electronic communications on those dates.
A Secret Service spokesman said the watchdog’s claims were “categorically false,” adding that the agency would release a more detailed response later.
The DHS did not respond to a request for comment late on Thursday.
It was not clear from the letter what had prompted it to be sent, how many messages it believed were deleted, and who those messages were sent from or sent to.
After the letter was published on Thursday, Bennie Thompson, who chairs both the congressional panel probing the Capitol attack and the House Homeland Security Committee, told Axios the alleged deletion was “concerning.”
“If there’s a way we can reconstruct the texts or what have you, we will,” Thompson told the news website.
The letter was reported earlier by The Intercept and CNN.
The Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol followed weeks of false claims by Trump that he won the 2020 election. On Tuesday, lawmakers of the House panel probing the attack accused Trump of inciting the violence in a last-ditch bid to remain in power after losing the election.
“First, the Department notified us that many U.S. Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” the letter from DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari stated.
“The USSS erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol on January 6,” the letter said.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
