The U.S. Congress panel that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in Washington said it had cited the Secret Service while investigating allegations of a watchdog that the agency deleted text messages requested as evidence.
“The select committee searches for relevant text messages as well as post-action reports that have been issued to any and all USSS divisions related or related in any way to the events of January 6, 2006. 2021, ”said committee chairman Mississippi. Representative Bennie Thompson said in a written statement
Inspector General Joseph Cuffari met with the House panel on Friday after accusing the Secret Service of deleting “many” text messages.
“Now we have to talk to the Secret Service … Our expectation is to get in touch with them,” Thompson told CNN.
Conflicting stories about texts
Committee member Jamie Raskin told reporters on Friday that the panel was determined to retrieve text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, which were allegedly deleted.
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday sent a letter to lawmakers saying the Secret Service had deleted “many” messages with a device replacement program after the dog was monitored. ask for records.
The Secret Service disputed that accusation on Thursday, saying some phone data was lost during a routine migration of the device, but that all requested texts had been saved.
“A‘ routine ’cleaning of files will require a process, so we want to see what that process is,” Thompson said Friday.
It was not clear in the letter what messages the inspector general’s office believed had been deleted or what evidence they might contain.
The 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump followed weeks of false claims by the former president who had won the 2020 election.
Dramatic testimony of the former assistant
The Jan. 6 committee has once again taken an interest in the Secret Service after the dramatic testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who recalled what she heard about Trump’s actions on the day of the uprising.
Hutchinson recalled that he was told of a confrontation between Trump and his Secret Service detail when he angrily demanded that he be taken to the Capitol, where his supporters would later break into the building. He also recalled hearing Trump asking security officials to remove the tape recorders for his rally at Ellipse Park, even though some of his supporters were armed.
US President Donald Trump then speaks during a rally to challenge the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election by the U.S. Congress in Washington on January 6, 2021. (Jim Borgi / Reuters)
With the evidence still emerging, the January 6 committee of the House has scheduled its next hearing to take place on Thursday at prime time. The 8 p.m. ET hearing, the eighth in a series that began in early June, will delve deeper into the more than three-hour stretch when Trump failed to act as a crowd of supporters stormed the Capitol.
It will be the first hearing at peak time since June 9, the first on the committee’s findings. That previous hearing was seen by 20 million people.