DHS inspector general meets with Jan. 6 committee about deleted Secret Service texts
The Office of Homeland Security inspector general met with users of the Jan. 6 committee at the rear of closed doors on Friday amid revelations about deleted Magic formula Company texts from the working day just before and the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The assembly will come following Inspector General Joseph Cuffari previously this 7 days despatched a memo to the committee notifying them the Secret Service had deleted textual content messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021.
Following Friday’s meeting, users identified as for transparency, with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., telling ABC Information Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott, “We require to get to the base of it, but if those people texts are gone, we are established to find them.
“We just you should not know in which the texts are. We you should not know regardless of whether the texts have vanished or not vanished. We really don’t know what the context was for their vanishing if they did vanish — we just do not know,” he said. “But we are heading to get to the bottom of it and we’re going to make a whole report to the American individuals.”
Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss out on., mentioned lawmakers however don’t know if there are additional messages missing further than those people from Jan 5 and 6.
“We’re not guaranteed. The IG indicated that they experienced made a sizeable request for info. And clearly, because he was not able to get it — we just genuinely really don’t know,” Thompson said.
Thompson said it is really “obvious” the Key Provider is not remaining cooperative.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top former aide to Trump White Property Chief of Workers Mark Meadows, testifies all through the sixth hearing by the Home Pick Committee to Examine the January 6th Attack on the Capitol, June 28, 2022.
Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
In before testimony, former Trump White Household aide Cassidy Hutchinson alleged she was advised then-President Donald Trump physically assaulted associates of his Magic formula Assistance detail when they declined to acquire him to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
A supply near to the Key Service does not dispute the previous president demanded to go to the Capitol just immediately after his rally on the Ellipse that day.
A movie of then-President Donald Trump talking is exhibited as the Household find committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol proceeds to reveal its conclusions of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, June 23, 2022.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The Secret Support, in a prolonged statement on Thursday night time, blasted the inspector general’s letter to the committee.
“The insinuation that the Secret Services maliciously deleted text messages adhering to a request is fake,” Anthony Gugliemi, the agency’s main of communications, said in a statement. “In actuality, the Solution Company has been entirely cooperating with the Section of Homeland Stability Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) in each individual regard — no matter whether it be interviews, files, emails, or texts.”
Gugliemi explained that in February 2021, the Top secret Provider commenced to reset its cell phones to manufacturing facility configurations as part of a formerly prepared, three-thirty day period process migration. In that system, data resident on some phones was misplaced, he explained.
The DHS inspector general did not quickly answer to an ABC News request for remark.
Cuffari, a Trump administration appointee, has not been devoid of controversy himself. His critics have claimed that his business office has not been as intense in investigating selected allegations of misconduct inside of Homeland Safety — criticism he is flatly denied.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Rachel Scott and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
