CNN Scoop: DHS Knew of Deleted Secret Service Texts More Than a YEAR Before They Told January 6 Committee

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari knew about the deleted Secret Service texts for more than a year before he told the January 6 committee about them.

CNN broke new details in the deepening scandal around the fact that Secret Service text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021 were deleted by the agency after they were told to preserve them. The issue has led to chatter about the loyalties of agents who served during the insurrection, and is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

According to a report authored by Whitney Wild, Zachary Cohen, and Jeremy Herb, Cuffari may not have been truthful when he told the committee he learned of the deletions in December:

The embattled inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security first learned of missing Secret Service text messages in May 2021 — months earlier than previously known and more than a year before he alerted the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, that potentially crucial information may have been erased, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Earlier this month, Secret Service officials told congressional committees that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, the department’s independent watchdog, was aware that texts had been erased in December 2021. But sources tell CNN, the Secret Service had notified Cuffari’s office of missing text messages in May 2021, seven months earlier.

The Secret Service now says the texts were lost as a result of a previously scheduled data migration of its agents’ cell phones that began on January 27, 2021, exactly three weeks after the attack on the US Capitol. After the data migration was completed, in May 2021 the Secret Service told Cuffari’s office that they tried to contact a cellular provider to retrieve the texts when they realized they were lost, a source told CNN.

And separately, The Washington Post reported that Cuffari offered data experts to help retrieve the deleted texts in February, only to reverse course later in the month.

Watch Whitney Wild’s on-air report above via CNN.