The Secret Service is accused of deleting an undetermined number of text messages covering the period of January 5-6, 2021, after the Homeland Security Inspector General ordered the agency to preserve all texts, at least that’s what happened according to the far left site The Intercept.
THE SECRET SERVICE erased text messages from January 5 and January 6, 2021, according to a letter given to the January 6 committee and reviewed by The Intercept. The letter was originally sent by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the House and Senate homeland security committees. Though the Secret Service maintains that the text messages were lost as a result of a “device-replacement program,” the letter says the erasure took place shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications.
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But, the Office of Inspector General letter suggests, key evidence in the form of the Secret Service’s electronic communications may never see the light of day. The Department of Homeland Security — the Secret Service’s parent agency — is subject to oversight from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which had requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service between January 5 and January 6, 2021, before being informed that they had been erased. It is unclear from the letter whether all of the messages were deleted or just some. Department officials have also pushed back on the oversight office’s records request by arguing that the records must first undergo review by DHS attorneys, which has delayed the process and left unclear if the Secret Service records would ever be produced, according to the letter.
This is how the New York Times frames the story, building on The Intercept’s “scoop.”
In a letter obtained by The New York Times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Secret Service, reported that many of the agents’ texts were erased as part of a device replacement program even after the inspector general had requested them as part of his inquiry into the events of Jan. 6.
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In a statement, the Secret Service disputed parts of the inspector general’s findings, saying that it “lost” data on “some phones” as part of a preplanned three-month “system migration” in January 2021, but maintaining that no texts pertinent to the inquiry “had been lost in the migration.”
Why this story and why now? That’s what you always have to ask when something like this sails in from left field.
In late June, former White House aide and Trump loyalist Cassidy Hutchinson gave an orgasmic tremor to anti-Trumpers of all persuasions when she testified that President Trump had fought a Secret Service agent for control of the steering wheel of the presidential limousine and threw food against the wall and all manner of other ridiculous stuff. Statements from Secret Service agents quickly demolished Hutchinson’s perjurious testimony…and a diagram of the limo showing that the driver’s compartment can’t be reached from the passenger’s compartment. Since then, stories have hinted that Hutchinson might be saying what she was told to say because she didn’t have the resources to defend herself.
There are some huge holes in the stories posted by The Intercept and the New York Times. Why is it only coming to light now, 18 months after the event, that there are missing text messages? Why didn’t the Homeland Security IG throw a flag when they first discovered the discrepancy instead of waiting to finish their report? Were the missing messages from the protective detail of either President Trump or Vice President Pence? Have the phones from the Secret Service been given the Mueller team treatment? When, exactly, did the IG order the phones to be preserved, and when were they disappeared?
If there are no text messages, the Democrats can spin a tale of conspiracy to protect President Trump on the part of the Secret Service. This does several things. If such a conspiracy exists, then the testimony of agents contradicting Hutchinson is questionable. This goes a long way toward rehabilitating her as a witness. The leftist media also seems to have targeted Anthony Ornato, the Secret Service’s assistant director for training for destruction. Ornato was a Secret Service agent whom President Trump elevated to deputy White House chief of staff. Ornato’s Secret Service connection and his role in the White House form a plausible nexus between the events of January 6 and the “missing” text messages.
Right now, we have three unconnected events that the Democrats and media are trying to connect: January 6, replacement phones for the Secret Service, and Hutchinson’s testimony. They have studiously not directly connected them for the obvious reason, but they encourage you to do that.
Personally, I don’t think any Secret Service employee would violate an order from the IG to preserve evidence, no matter how loyal they might be to President Trump. They knew he was leaving office and by January 7, knew that a sh**storm was brewing. I can’t imagine a situation where management in the Secret Service would have permitted the destruction of phones that might contain evidence of wrongdoing. But the truth here, like with everything else produced by the January 6 committee, is not the issue. The issue is creating the perception of criminality needed to keep President Trump from running in 2024 and using the “attack on democracy” as a theme in 2022.
