Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois said that it is “quite crazy” if it is true that the Secret Service deleted text messages from the day before and the day of the January 6 riots on the Capitol.
Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the House Select Committee that is investigating the January 6 riots. On CBS “Face the Nation” Kinzinger questioned the Secret Service’s explanation that the texts were lost due to a device switchover.
“They also put out a statement saying ‘we only lost some of the texts and everything relevant to this investigation has been turned over.’ So those are very conflicting statements so we decided as a committee, ‘let’s requests these by Tuesday and we can make a decision.’”
The committee has subpoenaed the text messages and has set a deadline of Tuesday for the Secret Service to comply. Kinzinger then questioned the wisdom of allowing anything to be deleted from those days.
“In the very least, it is quite crazy that the Secret Service would actually end up deleting anything related to one of the more infamous days in American history, particularly when it comes to the role of the Secret Service.”
Kinzinger stated that we would find out more on Tuesday when the deadline comes due. His feelings were echoed by Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California who is also on the House committee, during an interview with ABC.
“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones,” she stated. She would add, “that’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be.”
Kinzinger also stated that the Secret Service has indicated that they will meet the deadline.
“From what we understand they said ‘we will meet this deadline’ … so either we get that stuff, if we end up getting the text, then obviously for whatever reason the [Inspector General] didn’t, now you have what you have. If we don't then it will call out the Secret Service as having said they have these texts, and they don’t.”
Kinzinger added that he doesn’t know if the text will be relevant but that, “there is the question of why they are not cooperating with the [Department of Homeland Security Inspector General] and they need to.”
Later in the interview, Kinzinger stated that if former President Trump were called to testify in front of the committee, the former president would have no issue lying to the committee, even if under oath.
“Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t mind not telling the truth. Let’s just put that mildly. He lies all the time. I wouldn’t put it past him to even lie under oath, so I’m not sure what the value is there.”