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Secret Service Erased Jan. 5-6 Texts After Oversight Request: Watchdog

The messages were destroyed only after oversight officials requested them, according to a government watchdog.

Agents with the Secret Service erased text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog requested them as part of an investigation into the Capitol riots, according to a letter given to the Jan. 6 committee. The letter was originally sent by the agency watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, to lawmakers with the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees. In the letter, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said that the Secret Service had told his office that the text messages had been destroyed “as part of a device-replacement program,” with the inspector general emphasizing that the mass erasure had come only “after” the oversight request. The letter’s existence was first reported by The Intercept. “The [Jan. 6] committee will be briefed about this extraordinarily troubling destruction of records and respond accordingly,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chair of the panel, said in a statement on Thursday evening, according to CNN.