Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Secret Service over erased textual content messages

WASHINGTON — The Home panel investigating the assault on the Capitol issued a subpoena Friday to the Secret Service after a Homeland Safety official briefed committee members in regards to the Secret Service erasing textual content messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021.

In a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray, Committee chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., stated the panel needed any pertinent textual content messages and different data tied to Jan. 6. He stated the request was being made after the Division of Homeland Safety’s inspector basic notified congressional committees of allegations that the Secret Service had erased textual content messages after the interior watchdog requested data of digital communications surrounding the Jan. 6 riot.

Thompson’s letter was despatched after Homeland Safety Inspector Normal Joseph Cuffari briefed all 9 committee members Friday, a supply accustomed to the matter instructed NBC Information.

Two days earlier, Cuffari stated in a letter to 2 congressional committees he was knowledgeable that lots of the messages from Jan. 6 and the day earlier than the assault had been erased by the Secret Service “as a part of a device-replacement program.” The letter he despatched to the Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Home Homeland Safety Committee was additionally given to the Jan. 6 committee.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi insisted in a press release Thursday that the company has absolutely cooperated with the inspector basic’s evaluation and that some textual content messages have been erased earlier than they have been requested. Guglielmi additionally stated that the inspector basic’s workplace had been notified of the information loss on some telephones and confirmed that “not one of the texts it was searching for had been misplaced within the migration.”

Thompson responded to Guglielmi’s rebuttal by requesting the data in Friday’s letter to Murray.

“Accordingly, the Choose Committee seeks the related textual content messages, in addition to any after motion studies which were issued in any and all divisions of the USSS pertaining or relating in any option to the occasions of January 6, 2021,” he wrote.

The uncommon public conflict between the Jan. 6 committee and a federal company comes because the panel prepares for a prime-time listening to Thursday the place it’s anticipated to supply new particulars about occasions tied to the revolt.

The committee has requested that the company submit the related data by Tuesday.

NBC Information has reached out to the Secret Service for remark.