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Jan. 6 Committee issues subpoena for ALL Secret Service deleted texts, relevant records

July 18, 2022 | | Print Article

Following news that the Secret Service deleted text messages from January 5th and 6th of 2021, Jan. 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson has written a letter demanding that Secret Service Director James Murray produce all relevant texts and after action reports issued “in any and all divisions” that are in any way related to the infamous Capitol Hill events.

As BizPac Review reported, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General [OIG] sent a letter on July 13 explaining to the Jan. 6 Committee that text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 containing potentially vital information about the so-called “insurrection” were erased as part of a “device-replacement program.”

“First, the Department notified us that many US Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari wrote. “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.”

“Second,” he continued, “DHS personnel have repeatedly told OIG inspectors that they were not permitted to provide records directly to OIG and that such records had to first undergo review by DHS attorneys. This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced.”

On July 14, Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi slammed the IG for implying his agency acted “maliciously.”

“The insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request is false,” he stated. “In fact, the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) in every respect — whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts.”

Clearly, Bennie Thompson wasn’t convinced.

On July 15, the subpoena was issued.

In his letter to Murray, Thompson wrote: “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.’ In a statement issued July 14, 2022, the USSS stated that it ‘began to reset its mobile phones to factory settings as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration. In that process, data resident on some phones was lost.’ However, according to that USSS statement, ‘none of the texts it [DHS Office of Inspector General] was seeking had been lost in the migration.'”

“Accordingly,” Thompson continued, “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.”

Regardless of whether or not the texts can be retrieved or what they may or may not contain, the very public announcement of the subpoena and the subsequent press release has drummed up some liberal support for the next installment of the Dem-led show — and one must wonder if that wasn’t the point.

Ratings for the Jan. 6 hearings haven’t exactly been stellar.

“They all knew,” declared actress Yvette Nicole Brown, with absolutely no basis to back her up. “They’re all in on it. They should all go to jail.”

Others wondered what took the committee so long to make the request.

But among conservative tweeters, it’s just another chapter in what has, so far, been a very predictable book, and no amount of subpoenas will convince them otherwise.

Melissa Fine
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