NBC News is out with more bombshell reporting, exposing the ever-mounting scandal regarding the United States Secret Service, the infamous January 6th Capitol riot, and a trove of wrongfully deleted text messages and communications.
According to the explosive reporting, the US Secret Service has turned over more than 1 million electronic correspondences that took place in the days surrounding and during the violent Capitol attack to congressional House investigators in connection to the ongoing January 6th probe. However, markedly absent from the submitted communications were any of the now-notorious deleted J6 text messages.
Julia Ainsley with NBC News reported, “While the communications do not include text messages, they do include emails and other electronic messages, according to a Secret Service spokesperson. The communications may shed light on lingering questions, including contact agents may have had with rioters, their efforts to protect then-Vice President Mike Pence, and what occurred inside then-President Donald Trump’s car when Trump allegedly ordered Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol.”
In a statement on the matter, Secret Service spokesman Steve Kopek said, “We have and continue to fully cooperate with the Jan. 6 select committee. While no additional text messages were recovered, we have provided a significant level of details from emails, radio transmissions, Microsoft Teams chat messages, and exhibits that address aspects of planning, operations, and communications surrounding Jan. 6.”
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The development comes amid the growing scandal that broke earlier this year when it was revealed that countless text messages from within the Secret Service agency somehow managed to completely vanish, around the same time that January 6th investigators were requesting the communications in their probe. This scandal has led to notable speculation that the text messages were intentionally wiped by higher-ups within the agency, who likely bear a loyalty and devotion to ex-President Donald Trump. Secret Service officials have denied these allegations.
As a result of the scandal, an official criminal investigation has been launched into the now infamous deleted texts, and the National Archives and Records Administration has demanded that the Secret Service agency launch an internal investigation into the vanished correspondence.
“While the contents of the messages remain unknown, the committee may use them as exhibits in a hearing scheduled for Thursday,” the report reads. “The content of texts Secret Service agents sent on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, attracted increased interest in June, after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the House Jan. 6 committee that she had heard secondhand that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent when he refused to drive Trump’s car toward the Capitol during the insurrection. Trump has denied lunging at the agent.”
Read the full report from NBC News here.
Featured image via DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr
