WASHINGTON — The House panel investigating the assault on the U.S. Capitol is seeking to recover U.S. Secret Service text messages that could shed light on then-President Donald Trump’s actions as the attack unfolded, but were erased from the agency’s computer system.
“If there’s a way we can can reconstruct the texts or what have you, we will,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told reporters at the Capitol Thursday.
Some of the most riveting testimony from the panel’s televised hearings concerned Trump’s actions after he addressed a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. A former aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said she was told Trump wanted to join the mob then marching on the Capitol but was blocked by his security detail.
The texts could provide insight into that episode as well as security concerns surrounding then-Vice President Mike Pence, who had gone to the Capitol to preside over the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has notified the committee that key text messages sent by Secret Service agents on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 were erased from the computer system.
The Inspector General, Joseph Cuffari, said in a letter to the committee that the texts were lost during an equipment replacement only after his office asked for them as part of its investigation of the assault. He offered to brief the committee on the situation.
Homeland Security personnel repeatedly told his the Inspector General’s staff “that they were not permitted to provide records directly to OIG and that such records had to first undergo review by DHS attorneys. This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and creating confusion over whether all records had been produced,” Cuffari said in the letter.
A Secret Service spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, tweeted Thursday evening that “We take strong issue with these categorically false claims and I will be responding in detail shortly.” He did not elaborate.
Pressed as to whether the committee had plans to talk to Secret Service agents themselves, Thompson said, “I think it’s important for us to get as much information about how this discrepancy occurred and go from there.”
