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The phones were “soon after” the office of Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari (pictured), a Trump appointee, notified the Secret Service that there would be a criminal investigation into text messages from January 5 and 6 that were cleared by the agency, according to NBC News
The Secret Service seized the phones of two dozen agents involved in the response to last year’s attack on the United States Capitol, a new report said Tuesday.
They were handed over to the office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, people familiar with the case said. NBC News.
Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, a Trump appointee, informed the Secret Service in July that he was opening a criminal investigation into missing text messages dated January 5 and 6 last year.
Messages that could have been relevant to multiple investigations into the Jan. 6 riots — including the high-profile House Select Committee inquiry — were cleared after Cuffari’s office requested them, according to a letter he sent to relevant House committees. and sent the Senate.
Days later, Cuffari’s deputy asked the agency on July 19 to halt “further investigative activities related to the collection and preservation of the evidence” in the texts.
The 24 phones were reportedly given to the watchdog’s office “shortly afterwards.”
A Secret Service spokesperson referred DailyMail.com to the Inspector General’s office for questions about what items, including the phones, it had been given.
“The investigation into the travesty of the January 6 uprising is extremely important to us and is in line with the Secret Service’s mission to protect our country’s top government leaders,” the spokesman told DailyMail.com.
“We have and will continue to cooperate fully with all oversight efforts and have provided all that has been requested as part of these investigations.”
Cuffari’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Secret Service texts are being sought in connection with investigations into how the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol went
According to Tuesday’s NBC report, some officers were unhappy that their leaders unilaterally confiscated the phones.
The Secret Service had publicly rejected the Inspector General’s suggestion that text messages were intentionally deleted after his office requested it.
The agency claimed that the message deletion was due to a regularly scheduled update that wiped out almost all existing data from the phones. It claimed the change was already underway when the lyrics were requested.
Cuffari himself has been accused of undue interference in the investigation.
CNN previously reported that it knew the Secret Service had deleted the messages in May 2021 and informed DHS that it was no longer looking for them by July of that year.
Earlier this year, top lawmakers from the Jan. 6 committee and the House Oversight Committee wrote a letter accusing Cuffari of obstructing their investigations — which they called “unacceptable.”
“If you continue to refuse to comply with our requests, we will have no choice but to consider alternative measures to ensure that you comply with us,” Democratic Representatives Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney wrote in August.
Interest in Secret Service text messages stems primarily from a bomb statement given by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson during one of the commission’s final summer hearings on Jan. 6.
Public scrutiny increased after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, claimed she was told that Trump jumped to the Secret Service on January 6 last year when they refused to take him with his supporters to the United States Capitol. driving states.
Hutchinson testified that she was told the ex-president jumped to the wheel of his vehicle escort and then to an officer’s neck when they refused to take him with his supporters to the United States Capitol.
She allegedly told her that Trump was furious with his Secret Service’s security: ‘I’m the damn president. Take me to the Capitol now.”
Trump has denied the allegations.
The January 6 committee will hold another hearing, likely its last, on September 28.
Republican Representative Liz Cheney, the panel’s vice chair, said over the weekend that lawmakers received about 800,000 pages of Secret Service communications.
However, the sought-after text messages of January 5 and 6 are still largely lost.
“The texts themselves have disappeared in many cases or other forms of communication, such as Teams messages and emails, and other forms of communication, we probably received about 800,000 pages,” Cheney said at the Texas Tribune Festival.