{"id":1566718,"date":"2022-07-22T14:49:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T18:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1566718"},"modified":"2022-07-22T14:49:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T18:49:16","slug":"federal-watchdog-launches-criminal-probe-into-missing-secret-service-texts-from-january-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/federal-watchdog-launches-criminal-probe-into-missing-secret-service-texts-from-january-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Watchdog Launches Criminal Probe Into Missing Secret Service Texts From January 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffederal-watchdog-launches-criminal-probe-into-missing-secret-service-texts-from-january-6%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1566718&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The inspector general of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/department-of-homeland-security\">Department of Homeland Security<\/a> (DHS) has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into missing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/secret-service\">Secret Service<\/a> text messages sent on the day prior to and the day of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/january-6\">January 6 riot<\/a> at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>A letter from the DHS Inspector General sent Wednesday evening told the Secret Service that it should cease any internal investigations into the missing messages, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/dhs-launched-criminal-probe-destruction-jan-6-secret-service-text-mess-rcna39392\">NBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo ensure the integrity of our investigation, the USSS must not engage in any further investigative activities regarding the collection and preservation of the evidence referenced above,\u201d Deputy Inspector General Gladys Ayala wrote in a Wednesday evening letter. \u201cThis includes immediately refraining from interviewing potential witnesses, collecting devices or taking any other action that would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Secret Service said in a statement that it is \u201cin receipt of the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General\u2019s letter. We have informed the January 6th Select Committee of the Inspector General\u2019s request and will conduct a thorough legal review to ensure we are fully cooperative with all oversight efforts and that they do not conflict with each other,\u201d according to NBC News.<\/p>\n<p>Inspector General Joseph Cuffari <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/07\/14\/jan-6-texts-deleted-secret-service\/\">informed<\/a> the House January 6 committee earlier this month that messages the government investigator had sought from the Secret Service had been deleted. The inspector general\u2019s office said the deletions took place after the watchdog had filed a request for them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe USSS erased those text messages <em>after<\/em> OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as part of our evaluation of events at the Capitol on January 6,\u201d Cuffari told the committee in a letter, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/secret-service-deleted-text-messages-jan-6-previous-day-homeland-secur-rcna38332\">NBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Secret Service reportedly told the inspector general that the loss of messages on January 5 and 6 of 2021 took place \u201cas part of a device-replacement program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request is false,\u201d Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, according to NBC News. \u201cIn fact, the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the OIG in every respect \u2014 whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The committee, run by almost entirely by Democrats, has sought the text messages because of the potential information they may contain about former President Donald Trump\u2019s behavior before and during the riot at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n<p>Secret Service officials were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/national-security\/secret-service-was-told-least-jan-6-2021-preserve-texts-rcna39129\">notified<\/a> at least three times to preserve records on their cellphones. The first emailed notice came on Dec. 9, 2020, the next sometime in January 2021, and the third notice on February 4, 2021. The first two emails did not make any specific reference to the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the agency\u2019s chief information and chief operating officers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2022\/07\/20\/secret-service-national-archives\/\">decided<\/a> to switch agents\u2019 devices to a new software-management platform. Agents were given instructions on how to preserve information and given authority over which messages would be preserved while everything else would be wiped. The process began on January 27, 2021, and finished several months later on April 1.<\/p>\n<p>The deleted texts have raised questions from legal experts that the Secret Service may have violated the Federal Records Act, which mandates federal communications be preserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into missing Secret Service text messages sent on the day prior to and the day of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. A letter from the DHS Inspector General sent Wednesday evening told the Secret Service that &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1575086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1566718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1575086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1566718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1566718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}