The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General learned that the Secret Service deleted nearly all texts from Jan. 6 but did not inform Congress, according to The Washington Post.
Two whistleblowers who worked with Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump after serving as an advisor to Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and former Gov. Jan Brewer, revealed the months-long delay in reporting a purge of Secret Service texts that has come under scrutiny by the Jan. 6 committee, according to the report.
One whistleblower reported the decision by Cuffari's office not to disclose the purge to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), an independent watchdog group, which then relayed the information to congressional staff. Staffers then corroborated the account with a second whistleblower, according to the Post.
Cuffari's office in October 2021 had also prepared a public alert sounding the alarm that the Secret Service and other divisions of DHS were stonewalling it on requests for records and texts around the time of the Capitol riot but never issued it, sources told the outlet.
Congressional staffers and the two whistleblowers raised concerns that Cuffari's decision hampered investigators' ability to recover key evidence related to the Capitol riot, including texts of Secret Service agents that planned Trump's movements on Jan. 6 and protected him as he plotted to overturn his election loss.
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