The National Archives and Records Administration has requested that the Secret Service investigate whether any text messages from Jan. 5-6, 2021 were “improperly deleted.”
The Secret Service will be required to report back on its finding within 30 calendar days if it finds that any messages were erased improperly.
SECRET SERVICE COMING UP ON DEADLINE TO TURN OVER ELUSIVE JAN. 6 TEXTS
“If it is determined that any text messages have been improperly deleted (regardless of their relevance to the OIG/Congressional inquiry of the events on January 6, 2021), then the Secret Service must send NARA a report within 30 calendar days of the date of this letter with a report documenting the deletion,” Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer wrote in a letter to the Secret Service on Tuesday.
If a report is required in response, the Secret Service must detail actions taken to “salvage, retrieve, or reconstruct the records.”
“This report must include a complete description of the records affected, a statement of the exact circumstances surrounding the deletion of messages, a statement of the safeguards established to prevent further loss of documentation, and details of all agency actions taken to salvage, retrieve, or reconstruct the records,” Brewer wrote.
The agency previously disputed claims it “maliciously deleted text messages,” saying some messages were “lost” during a “device-replacement program” prior to an electronic communications request from the office of the inspector general’s evaluation of the events of Jan. 6.
“DHS OIG requested electronic communications for the first time on Feb. 26, 2021, after the migration was well under way. The Secret Service notified DHS OIG (Office of Inspector General] of the loss of certain phones’ data, but confirmed to OIG that none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration,” said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, in an email to the Washington Examiner last Thursday.
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The Secret Service is also facing a deadline Tuesday morning to hand over “relevant’ text messages from those two days and any action reports “pertaining or relating in any way to the events” of Jan. 6, after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot subpoenaed the records.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Secret Service for comment.
