Secret Service Director James Murray pledged that the embattled agency will fully cooperate with the House Jan. 6 committee despite a ruckus over deleted text messages.
“We have provided thousands of documents, operationally sensitive radio transmissions, and access to Secret Service employees. We will continue to cooperate fully with the Committee and any other investigative body,” Murray declared in a statement released Friday.
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Murray, who recently announced his plans to retire, delivered the assurance amid heightened scrutiny over the agency for missing text messages from the time surrounding the Capitol riot that the Jan. 6 committee and federal investigators have sought. So far, the Secret Service has reportedly provided only a single text exchange to the committee despite demands for a month’s worth of records.
Secret Service officials have maintained the agency did not maliciously purge text message material but rather lost the messages during a “device-replacement program.” The mishap has stoked criticism of the agency and prompted a National Archives review into the matter. Sources told the Washington Post that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general knew in February that the cellphone texts had been erased but did not alert Congress for months.
The text messages from the days surrounding the riot could shed light on happenings described in testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who talked about hearing an account about former President Donald Trump attempting to commandeer the presidential SUV vehicle and lunging at an agent on the day of the Capitol riot. Those claims have been disputed by Trump.
Secret Service officials were instructed to record and preserve communications at least three times in the run-up and aftermath of the Capitol riot ahead of an agency phone migration, CBS News reported. On Thursday, it was suggested that there is a criminal investigation into the deleted messages.
“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 the agency. “This includes immediately refraining from interviewing potential witnesses, collecting devices or taking any other action that would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Murray noted that the agency is “finalizing dates and times” for committee members to ask follow-up questions to Secret Service personnel. He said this after a member of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-NY), mentioned that some Secret Service agents involved in the alleged SUV incident are retaining legal counsel.
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Although refraining from opining on the text message debacle, Murray sought to reassure the public about the Secret Service’s commitment to aid the committee. He underscored that he was apoplectic over the Jan. 6 riot and stressed that he “could not be prouder of the men and women of the Secret Service for their actions on that dark day.”
“I found the events at the Capitol on January 6th to be abhorrent. What happened on that day in January 2021 is anathema to democracy and the processes our constitution guarantees,” he added. “Since day one, I have directed our personnel to cooperate fully and completely with the Committee and we are currently finalizing dates and times for our personnel to make themselves available to the Committee for follow up inquiries.”
