By Steve Neavling
Secret Service agents erased text messages sent and received during a two-day period surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection, the inspector general for Homeland Security said.
The messages were erased, even though the inspector general asked that they be preserved for the investigation into the events of Jan. 6, the IG said in a letter obtained by The New York Times.
“It’s concerning,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told The Times. “It’s important for us to get as much information about how this discrepancy occurred.”
The Secret Service took issue with some of the allegations, saying “some phones” had “lost” data as part of a three-month “system migration” in January 2021, but insisted that none of the lost texts were relevant to the inquiry.
The migration was underway before the inspector general had requested the data, the agency said in a statement, adding that none of the messages were “maliciously” deleted.
