Jan. 6 committee meets with DHS watchdog over erased Secret Service texts

The House select Jan. 6 committee met Friday morning with DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari about erased Secret Service text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, multiple members of the panel told CBS News. 

Cuffari sent a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees earlier this week saying that the Secret Service had wiped text messages from those two days as part of a "device-replacement program" shortly after the inspector general's office requested the records.

He also told Congress in the letter that DHS personnel "repeatedly told OIG inspectors that they were not permitted to provide records directly to OIG and that such records had to first undergo review by DHS attorneys." The review "led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced."

Select committee Chair Bennie Thompson said the panel met Thursday night and decided to invite Cuffari to meet with them. 

"We wanted to get the IGs perspective on what he thought was going on," Thompson said. "So we met, and they shared that with us." Rep. Elaine Luria, who sits on the panel, that the meeting was the "first step" in the committee's efforts to probe "more deeply" the concerns Cuffari had laid out in his letter. Thompson said the committee has already had "limited engagement" with the Secret Service and will "follow up with some additional engagement, now that we've met with the IG."

Thompson said the Secret Service has "not been fully cooperating" with the inspector general's office, but that the committee is still interested in obtaining the missing texts from Jan. 5-6, 2021. "The communications within the Secret Service, who was protecting the president and vice president at the critical time on Jan. 6 when the violence broke out, that's of the utmost interest to the committee," Luria said. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin, who also sits on the committee, said the panel will continue to work to obtain the missing messages.

"We are determined to recover and retrieve all of the texts that have been lost," he said.