Inspector General Joseph Kufari met with the committee behind closed doors two days after sending a letter to lawmakers informing them that the text messages had been deleted after the surveillance agency requested records related to her electronic communications as part of the ongoing investigation surrounding Attack on the Capitol.
The committee now plans to contact Secret Service officials to ask about the deletion of text messages from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the day before, including the agency’s process for clearing files, to see if that policy was complied, commission Chairman Benny Thompson told CNN.
Members of the Jan. 6 committee expressed concern after the meeting about the differing version of events between the inspector general and the Secret Service and stressed that they wanted to hear from the agency itself.
Kufari told the committee that the Secret Service did not conduct its own after-action review regarding Jan. 6 and chose to rely on the inspector general’s investigation, according to a source familiar with the briefing. The inspector general told the committee that the Secret Service was not fully cooperative in its investigation.
Kufari’s description gives the impression that the Secret Service was “a pushover,” the source said. The inspector general told the committee they were not given full access to personnel and records.
Kufari said he took the matter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas more than once and was told to keep trying to get the information. In the end, Kufari decided to go to Congress because he couldn’t get anywhere within DHS with his concerns. Separately, a law enforcement official told CNN that Kufari was going to Mallorca.
DHS said in a statement that it “has ensured and will continue to ensure that both the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Special Commission of Inquiry into the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol have the information they have requested .”
Thompson told CNN that the IG said during his meeting that the Secret Service had not fully cooperated.
“Well, they’re not fully cooperating,” the Mississippi Democrat said, adding: “We’ve had a limited engagement with the Secret Service. We will be moving forward with some additional engagements now that we have met with the IG.”
Thompson said the commission would work “to try to determine whether these texts can be resurrected.”
The congressman previously told CNN after the meeting that the committee needs to interview Secret Service officials to find out what happened to the text messages that were deleted on January 5 and 6, 2021.
“Now that we have the IG’s opinion on what happened. Now we have to talk to the Secret Service. And our expectation is to reach out to them directly,” Thompson said. “One of the things we have to make sure is that what the Secret Service is saying and what the IG is saying that these two issues are actually the same thing. So, now that we have that, we’re going to ask for some physical information. And we will make a decision ourselves.”
Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who serves on the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN there appeared to be some “conflicting statements” between the inspector general of homeland security and the Secret Service about whether the Secret Service text messages on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, they are not actually there.
The inspector general initially notified the House and Senate Homeland Security committees in a letter that the text messages were deleted from the system as part of a device replacement program after the watchdog requested the agency’s records.
“First, the Department notified us that many text messages from the US Secret Service from January 5 and 6, 2021, were deleted as part of a device replacement program. The USSS deleted these text messages after the OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS as part of our assessment of the events at the Capitol on January 6,” Kufari stated in the letter.
“Second, DHS staff have repeatedly told OIG inspectors that they are not authorized to provide records directly to OIG and that those records must first be reviewed by DHS attorneys,” Kufari added. “This review resulted in a delay of weeks in receiving records from the OIG and created confusion as to whether all records had been submitted.”
In a statement Thursday night, the Secret Service said the inspector general’s claim about the lack of cooperation was “neither correct nor new.”
“To the contrary, the DHS OIG has previously alleged that its staff did not receive appropriate and timely access to materials due to counsel review. DHS has repeatedly and publicly debunked this claim, including in response to the OIG’s last two semiannual reports to Congress. It is not clear why the OIG is raising this matter again,” the statement said.
After initially requesting records from more than 20 people in February, the IG returned to request more records for additional people, according to the law enforcement official. There were no text messages about the new request because they were lost in the system transfer, the law enforcement official said. The official also said the agency had been informed of the transition and sent guidance on how to retain phone records from the IT department.
CNN law enforcement analyst Jonathan Wackrow, who has worked for the Secret Service for 14 years, said it would make sense for the inspector general to conduct the review after Jan. 6. From the Secret Service’s perspective, both the president and vice president were safe, so the agency will not consider this an incident to be reviewed in an after-action report, Wakrow said.
This story was updated with additional developments on Friday.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and Morgan Riemer contributed to this report.
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