WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed the Secret Service Friday night for text messages reported to have been deleted around Jan. 6, 2021.
Committee Chair Benny Thompson, Md., said in a statement that the committee is seeking “the relevant text messages, as well as any follow-up reports that have been issued in all USSS divisions that relate or relate in any way to to the events of January 6, 2021.”
The subpoenas come hours after the nine-member panel received a closed-door briefing from the Department of Homeland Security watchdog. The committee initially sought the electronic records in mid-January and issued a formal request in March for all communications received or sent by DHS officials between Jan. 5 and Jan. 7, 2021.
THIS IS UPDATED NEWS. Earlier AP story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog briefed all nine members of the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Friday of its finding that the Secret Service deleted texts from around Jan. 6, according to two people , familiar with matter.
While lawmakers were tight-lipped about what they heard, the closed-door briefing with Inspector General Joseph Kufari came two days after his office sent a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees stating that Secret Service agents services deleted messages between January 5 and January 6, 2021 “as part of a device replacement program.” The deletion came after the watchdog requested records from agents as part of its investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack, the letter said.
For the Jan. 6 panel, the watchdog’s finding raised the startling prospect of lost evidence that could shed further light on Donald Trump’s actions during the riot.
Congressman Benny Thompson, the Democrat who presided over the House on Jan. 6, told The Associated Press on Friday that the committee was taking a closer look at whether the records may have been lost. “There were some conflicting positions on this,” the Mississippi lawmaker said.
The private briefing was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss it.
The Secret Service insists that proper procedures were followed. Agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said: “The insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages after a request is false. In fact, the Secret Service is cooperating fully with the OIG in every way – whether it’s interviews, documents, emails or text messages.
He said the Secret Service began resetting its mobile devices to factory settings in January 2021 “as part of a pre-planned quarterly system migration.” In this process, some data was lost.
The inspector general first requested the electronic communications on Feb. 26 “after the migration was already underway,” Guglielmi said.
The Secret Service said it provided the inspector general with a significant number of emails and chat messages that included conversations and details related to Jan. 6. He also said text messages from Capitol Police requesting help on Jan. 6 were preserved and provided to the inspector general’s office.
The Senate Interior Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, is also awaiting a briefing from the inspector general on the letter, according to a person familiar with the committee’s discussions who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.
The Jan. 6 panel took renewed interest in the Secret Service after the dramatic testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who recalled what she had heard about former President Donald Trump’s actions on the day of the riot.
Hutchinson recalled being told of a confrontation between Trump and his Secret Service team as he angrily demanded to be driven to the Capitol, where his supporters would later storm the building. She also recalled hearing Trump tell security officials to remove the magnetometers for his Ellipse rally, even though some of his supporters were armed.
Some details of that account were quickly disputed by those agents. Robert Engel, the agent who drove the president’s SUV, and Trump security official Tony Ornato are prepared to testify under oath that neither agent was assaulted and that Trump never threw himself at the wheel, a person familiar with the matter said , in front of AP. The person did not want to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
With evidence still emerging, the House committee on Jan. 6 on Friday scheduled its next hearing for Thursday in prime time. The 8 p.m. hearing, the eighth in a series that began in early June, will take a closer look at the three-hour period when Trump was unable to act as a crowd of supporters stormed the Capitol.
This will be the first prime-time hearing since June 9, the first on the commission’s findings. It has been watched by 20 million people.
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Associated Press writer Gary Fields contributed.
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