CNN is now out with breaking new details on the mounting Secret Service scandal, as they report that the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari allegedly knew about the deleted Secret Service text messages hailing from the days surrounding and on January 6th, 2020, for more than a year before he ultimately informed the January 6th House Select Committee about them.
We recently discovered and reported that the US Secret Service was in quite a bit of hot water after the J6 Committee — that’s currently investigating the infamous Capitol attack and the roles played in inciting the violence by then-President Trump and his inner circle — after the House Panel requested Secret Service text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, only to discover that the communications had been deleted by the agency after the request was made. The issue has exploded into speculations and questions regarding the loyalties of the government agency and agents who served at the time of the Capitol insurrection, so much so that the ordeal is not officially the subject of a criminal investigation.
Whitney Wild, Zachary Cohen, and Jeremy Herb with CNN now report that Cuffari seems to have been less than honest with the House Committee regarding the timeline on when he learned of the deletion of the communications in question back in December:
The embattled inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security first learned of missing Secret Service text messages in May 2021 — months earlier than previously known and more than a year before he alerted the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, that potentially crucial information may have been erased, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Earlier this month, Secret Service officials told congressional committees that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, the department’s independent watchdog, was aware that texts had been erased in December 2021. But sources tell CNN, the Secret Service had notified Cuffari’s office of missing text messages in May 2021, seven months earlier.
The Secret Service now says the texts were lost as a result of a previously scheduled data migration of its agents’ cell phones that began on January 27, 2021, exactly three weeks after the attack on the US Capitol. After the data migration was completed, in May 2021 the Secret Service told Cuffari’s office that they tried to contact a cellular provider to retrieve the texts when they realized they were lost, a source told CNN.”
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The Washington Post is also out with their own reporting on the matter, revealing that Cuffari first offered the help of data experts to retrieve the deleted communications in question back in February, only to ultimately reverse course later in the same month.
Watch on-air reporting on the matter from CNN’s Whitney Wild here:
CNN Exclusive: The Department of Homeland Security inspector general knew of missing Secret Service texts months earlier than previously known. CNN’s @WhitneyWReports. @KASIE pic.twitter.com/iu0IAWPesl
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) July 29, 2022
Featured image via screen capture
