By Steve Neavling
The Homeland Security watchdog who is accused of mishandling deleted Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection violated ethics rules while at the Justice Department, according to a 2013 report.
Joseph V. Cuffari, who served as a special agent overseeing a DOJ inspector general field office in Tucson, was under investigation for misleading federal investigators and running “afoul” of ethics regulations, The Washington Post reports.
According to the report, he failed to properly notify his supervisors that he testified in a case against the federal government.
When asked about it, OIG investigators “were skeptical of Cuffari’s assertions to us” about being at the hearing.
“Cuffari’s purported response was materially different than what he had e-mailed his supervisors about an hour earlier,” the report states.
Investigators said they did “not believe” Cuffari’s explanation for failing to disclose the information.
Cuffari is under fire failing to try to retrieve text messages from Secret Service agents’ phones.
The House committee investigating the insurrection has been seeking the messages in hopes of revealing more information about Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021.
When Cuffari notified the House and Senate Homeland Security committees this month that the text messages had been “erased,” he failed to disclose that “his office first discovered that deletion in December and failed to alert lawmakers or examine the phones.”
