Trump's Homeland Security Watchdog Scuttled Efforts To Recover Secret Service Texts: Report
The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog last year suddenly scrapped plans to recover missing Secret Service text messages linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, sources have told The Washington Post.
The crucial texts were lost as the Secret Service switched to a new system and new devices.
After learning of the vanished texts, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office initially planned in February 2021 to contact all Homeland Security agencies, offering data specialists to help retrieve any relevant messages from their phones, according to government whistleblowers who provided reports to Congress, the Post reported.
But according to three sources who spoke with the Post, Cuffari’s office suddenly decided later that month not to collect phones or review any data.
A senior forensics analyst in Cuffari’s office had arranged to collect some phones, according to sources. But late on the night of Feb. 18, one of several deputies who “report to Cuffari’s team” wrote an email to investigators instructing them not to take the phones and not to seek any data from them, according to a copy of an internal record shared with the Post.