The Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security has announced a criminal investigation into the Secret Service destruction of 1/6 evidence.
The DHS Inspector General informed the Secret Service on Wednesday evening that the investigation is now criminal and that it should halt all internal investigations on the missing text messages, according to a letter detailed to NBC News.Â
“To ensure the integrity of our investigation, the USSS must not engage in any further investigative activities regarding the collection and preservation of the evidence referenced above,†DHS Deputy Inspector General Gladys Ayala wrote in a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray on Wednesday evening. “This includes immediately refraining from interviewing potential witnesses, collecting devices or taking any other action that would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.â€
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
The criminal investigation is a major development as the destruction of text messages the day before and the day of the 1/6 attack was not routine. Blaming device upgrades doesn’t explain who decided not to back up the text messages from the day when the nation was under domestic terror attack from the people in charge of protecting the president.
If the text messages contained nothing criminal or damaging to the Secret Service, it is a safe guess that they would have been saved. It is standard procedure in the federal government that all agencies are told to preserve potential evidence when an event occurs.
Someone at the Secret Service gave the order to destroy the text messages, and that person could face the possibility of criminal charges.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
