Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) Joseph Cuffari was previously accused of misleading federal investigators, according to a 2013 report disclosed by the Washington Post.
Right now, Cufari is overseeing an investigation into the missing messages by the US Secret Service (USSS) pertaining to the 6 January 2021 Capitol breach.
According to the Washington Post, the 2013 investigation found that Cuffari, who served at the time as a special agent overseeing the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Inspector General field office in Arizona, broke several agency requirements and federal ethics regulations, including using his public office for private purposes.
The report argued that Cuffari had failed to properly notify the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that he provided testimony at the request of a plaintiff in a case against the federal government.
He did so despite the fact that the Inspector General manual dictates that he should have "notified the appropriate OIG officials and obtained approval before testifying."
“We concluded Cuffari’s actions violated the [inspector general] manual’s prohibition on unethical conduct,” the report noted, adding that he may have violated guidelines by using his government email to lobby for a position as inspector general for the Arizona National Guard, among other issues.
The report added that an internal team recommended a more in-depth review of Cuffari's actions through the OIG’s investigation unit. He, however, retired shortly after and went to work for then-Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, according to the Washington Post.
A spokesperson for Cuffari’s office told the newspaper via an email that Cuffari had been fully vetted by the FBI, the White House and the Senate during the DHS IG nomination process. The spokesperson added that Cuffari “has not received nor seen the report to which you refer”.
House Oversight chair Carolyn Maloney and House Homeland Security head Bennie Thompson have, meanwhile, stepped up their calls for Cuffari to stand down following the release of the report, referring to what they described as his “repeated failures”.
"The 2013 memo we are releasing today raises yet more questions about whether Mr. Cuffari can complete this investigation with impartiality and integrity as Inspector General. We know that Inspector General Cuffari sat on the knowledge of the erased text messages for a year, choosing not to notify Congress and even discouraging his own investigators from recovering key information”, the two claimed in a statement.
In an email to his workforce seen by Politico, Cuffari, for his part, asserted that “because of the US Attorney General guidelines and quality standards, we cannot always publicly respond to untruths and false information about our work.”
“I am so proud of the resilience I have witnessed in the face of this onslaught of meritless criticism”, he pointed out.
Last month, the House select committee probing the Capitol breach subpoenaed the 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 Secret Service Director James Murray, 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’.”
On January 6, 2021, a crowd largely consisting of Trump supporters attempted to stop Congress from certifying the results of what the 45th president slammed as "the most corrupt election" in American 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.