Secret Service investigators discovered metadata revealing that text messages were sent and received on no less than 10 agents' phones in the days surrounding the Capitol riot - yet have since been deleted, according to CNN.
Investigators were then working to decide whether the content of these texts contained information regarding the attempted insurrection and whether they should have been preserved amid an ongoing House probe into the riot, two unnamed sources explained to the network.
Among the text records the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General asked for were those of the heads of the detail for both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence: Bobby Engel and Tim Giebels, respectively.
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It's unclear whether they are included among the 10 personnel whose phones included metadata showing deleted text records.
Yet among the 24 Secret Service members initially under scrutiny by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, sources told CNN that 10 different members had no text messages around that time and three others only had personal messages.
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The deletion of the messages has raised the prospect of lost proof that could shed further light on then-President Donald Trump's actions throughout the insurrection, especially after testimony regarding his confrontation with security as he tried to join backers at the Capitol.
It's unclear now what will happen to the 10 Secret Service members who were found to have deleted text messages from the time, as the Inspector General ordered the agency to cease its internal probe amid a criminal probe.
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Secret Service agents, though, say the texts could have been deleted accidentally when the agency carried out a months-long data migration of its phones starting Jan. 27, 2021.
The agency left it up to individual agents to decide what electronic records to keep and what to delete during the process.
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According to the letter sent to the Secret Service from the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection, the inspector general first asked for records from 24 personnel in June 2021.
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"The Select Committee seeks the relevant text messages, as well as any after action reports that have been issued in any and all divisions of the USSS pertaining or relating in any way to the events of January 6, 2021," January 6, panel Chairman Bennie Thompson wrote in a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray.
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The committee further specifically requested "all documents and communications related to actual or attempted conversations between any DHA official and President Trump and/or any other White House official" regarding the January 5 rally and January 6 riot.
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