The US Secret Service, law enforcement agency that protects the president, a deleted agent text message sent during January 6 Capitol Riot, said the government supervisor in a letter issued Thursday.
Joseph Cuffari, Inspector General of the Department of Domestic Security, told the Congress in a Wednesday letter that his office had difficulty getting records from the Secret Service from 5 and 6 January 2021.
The messages could be crucial to the house of representatives and justice department investigations into anyther donald trump and his close advisers encouraged the deadly insurrection by the former president’s supporters at the us capitol, which Election of November 2020.
The secret agents with Trump on the day of the rebellion, and also together with Vice President Mike Pence, who hid in the capitol after the pro-trump riot called for him to be hung.
On June 29, a former White House staff told the DPR on January 6, an investigation that Trump had tried to force the secret service to bring him to the capitol to join his supporters that day.
“The department tells us that many US Secret Service text messages (USSS), from 5 and 6 January 2021, were deleted as part of the device replacement program,” Cuffari wrote in a letter that was first reported by The Intercept and then issued by Politico.
“Usss deleted the text message after OIG requested an electronic communication record” for January 6 review, he said, referring to the Inspector General Office.
In addition, he said, the department was stopped to give other notes to OIG.
In a statement, Secret Service Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi rejected the accusation of the Inspector General.
He said the agent’s phone was deleted as part of the planned replacement program that began before OIG asked for information six weeks after the rebellion.
“Secret service tells DHS about the loss of certain telephone data, but confirms to OIG that no text sought has been lost in migration,” he said.
Letter Cuffari was addressed to the leaders of the Senate and the Domestic Security Committee.
The Chairperson of the Domestic Security Committee is Bennie Thompson’s representative, who is also the Chairperson of the DPR Committee who investigated January 6.
Their investigation has tried to show that Trump consciously incite the rebellion as an effort “coup.”
Secret Service has been criticized because it is not enough to anticipate the threat of acts of violence by supporters of armed Trump on January 6.
Trump had made a senior secretary official at the time, Tony Ornato, Deputy Chief of Staff of his personal staff.
Ornato has denied the account given to the January 6 Committee by former Trump Cassidy Hutchinson’s aide that Trump tried to force the secret service to take him to the capitol when his supporters gathered at the building, the US legislative seat.
But other white home officials have supported the story of Hutchinson.