House Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Secret Service Over Alleged Missing Text Messages on Capitol Breach

© AP Photo / John MinchilloProtesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.  - Sputnik International, 1920, 16.07.2022
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The US Secret Service has been in the spotlight during the past several weeks over the events of January 6, 2021, when a mob, including some supporters of former President Donald Trump, breached the Capitol to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The House select committee probing last year’s breach of the US Capitol has subpoenaed the country’s Secret Service (USSS) over questions related to the agency’s alleged missing text messages from the days in early January 2021 surrounding the riot.

In a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray on Friday, the panel’s chair Bennie Thompson wrote that the Select Committee “has been informed that the USSS erased text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021 as part of a ‘device-replacement program’.”

“Accordingly, the Select Committee seeks the relevant text messages, as well as any after action reports that have been issued in any and all divisions of the USSS pertaining or relating in any way to the events of January 6, 2021,” Thompson added.
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. U.S. - Sputnik International, 1920, 06.01.2022
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The letter comes as Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who is also member of the Jan.6 committee, said that the panel wants to hear more from the Secret Service to try to understand what happened.

“The committee is absolutely determined to get to the bottom of this and to find all of the missing texts. They are missing, but in the age of high technology, we should not give up,” he said on Friday.

This followed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Inspector General Joseph Cuffari telling the House and Senate Homeland Security committees that “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 DHS is the parent agency of the Secret Service.
According to Cuffari, the DHS claimed that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) could not provide records directly to Cuffari until they were reviewed by lawyers.
A Secret Service spokesman, in turn, said in a statement after the texts’ deletion was revealed that the messages related to the investigation into the January 6 events were not affected by the “device-replacement program”.

He insisted that the USSS had been cooperating with the inspector general’s investigation and rejected the “insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request.”

The Secret Service garnered nationwide attention in recent weeks after a testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson claimed that she heard an account of former President Donald Trump attempting to bark at a Secret Service agent and grab at the steering wheel of a presidential vehicle after he was told that he could not go to the Capitol during the January 6 events, something the ex-POTUS denies.
An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump riot in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. - Sputnik International, 1920, 05.01.2022
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January 6, 2022 marked the first anniversary of the Capitol breach, which saw a mob, including some supporters of Trump, attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results of what the 45th president slammed as "the most corrupt election" in US history.
Trump was accused of "incitement of insurrection" despite having called on his supporters, via his now-suspended Twitter account, "to stay peaceful" and "go home", and recording a video address on January 7 condemning the violence. He was impeached for an unprecedented second time over the accusations, but was then acquitted in the Senate.
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