In fulfilling a request from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general for a month’s worth of records for 24 employees, the Secret Service provided just one text message exchange, according to CNN.
A letter that CNN obtained from the Secret Service to the Jan. 6 committee showed that in June 2021, DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari requested the Secret Service provide text messages for the two dozen personnel from Dec. 8, 2020, to Jan. 8, 2021.
The letter does not identify the employees.
According to Ronald Rowe, the assistant director for the Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs for the Secret Service, the agency submitted a conversation between former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and former Secret Service Uniformed Division Chief Thomas Sullivan, in which Sund requested support on Jan. 6.
Rowe said the agency made the committee aware that it did not have any additional records to submit, according to CNN.
Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., told MSNBC that the committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for text messages, but the agency was unable to provide the requested records.
Cuffari had previously informed the committee that the Secret Service had deleted the text messages from Jan. 5-6, 2021 as "part of a device-replacement program," after the electronic communications records had been requested.
In the letter, the agency explained that employees were responsible for preserving the records from their phones. The service provided personnel with a "step-by-step" guide to preserve mobile phone content, including text messages, before the phone migration began on Jan. 27.
The Secret Service has affirmed that the text messages were not deleted maliciously.
The agency said in the letter that it was working to determine if any pertinent information was lost during the device replacement period. CNN reports that the Secret Service is "currently unaware" of text messages that were requested that were "not retained."
The Secret Service is also interviewing the 24 employees to determine if the messages were backed up in alternate locations.
According to the letter, the agency provided the committee with more than 10,000 pages of documents in its initial answer to the subpoena.
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