Another GOP hearing SNAFU

They're good at hanging themselves in House hearings.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified before the House Oversight Committee in a hearing on Tuesday that was supposed to be about staffing the border patrol, but took a turn as many of the Democrats on the panel grilled Cuffari about information regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, joined the hearing and grilled Cuffari regarding past allegations he had altered reports from his office and did not alert Congress in a timely fashion that the Secret Service was not complying with DHS information requests.

“Your duty under the Inspector General Act is to immediately report flagrant and serious abuses that are taking place. You were aware, at least as early as May of 2021, that the Secret Service had erased thousands of text messages that were sent before and during the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol, the Congress, and the vice president,” Raskin began, adding:

But you failed to notify Congress for 14 months, for a year and two months that the Secret Service was refusing to comply with your requests for information. So why didn’t you immediately report as you’re statutorily bound to do these serious and flagrant failures to answer your questions about the disappearance of thousands of texts that were sent during January 6th?

[...]

[W]e have documents showing that just six weeks after the initial request for documents from the Secret Service, you canceled requests to the Secret Service for phone records and text messages. Why did you do that?” Raskin followed up.

“If I recall correctly, and I mentioned during my prepared remarks here, DHS was delaying or denying us access to relevant information,” Cuffari replied.

“But did you report that to Congress at that point or ask for a report to Congress?” Raskin asked.

[...]

"[W]hat I don’t understand is your office revived the request that you nullified six weeks after originally making it. Five months later, in December of 2021 is what the paper trail reveals. But what I don’t understand is your statutory duty to immediately inform Congress about this flagrant abuse.”

[...]

You published your semiannual report where there was going to be a reference to the Secret Service’s obstruction of this investigative path. And you removed that. Why was the reference to the Secret Services obstruction deliberately deleted from the June 22nd semiannual report of the inspector general?” Raskin asked.

[...]

“Did you sign off on the decision to remove this reference from the report?” Raskin insisted.

[...]

“I signed off on the removal and I signed a letter specifically to the January 6th Oversight Committee and to this oversight committee,” Cuffari answered.

“But why did you remove it?” Raskin demanded.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) then jumped in and told Raskin his “time is expiring” and then tried to redirect the hearing the border patrol.

  Mediaite

Luckily, the Freedom Caucus is unable to be embarrassed, because they are incredibly bad at conducting hearings.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

About those Secret Services "missing" texts

A suit filed in federal court Wednesday seeks to compel the National Archives to seek assistance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in recovering text messages from both the Secret Service and leadership of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that were apparently lost in days following the 2020 election.

The suit, filed on behalf of Ken Klippenstein, a reporter for The Intercept, turns to a provision of the Federal Records Act that requires the head of the Archives to request assistance from the attorney general if an agency does not act to recover the records.

[...]

“All NARA can really do is ask questions and wag their finger. The FBI and DOJ can subpoena and can compel answers,” [attorney Kel McClanahan] said.

[...]

Lawmakers were notified in July by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari that the Secret Service had “erased” text messages from Jan. 6, 2021, something the agency said occurred as a result of a migration to a new phone software that took place just weeks after the attack on the Capitol.

Text messages from then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were also lost in a “reset” of government phones during the transmission to the Biden administration.

Together, the erasures represent a major loss for those reviewing the effort to block the transition of power after the 2020 election, both in terms of reviewing discussions around former President Trump’s movements that day, as well as his efforts to have DHS seize voting machines.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deleted from SS end...what about Oath Keepers?

“Following the (Oath Keepers) trial, the committee reached out to the Secret Service and a verbal briefing as provided to staff, which was specific to the comments made at trial,” said Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. “Today, the committee has followed up with a formal inquiry for records regarding that and January 6, which we will provide.”

[...]

[T]he agency said an agent from its protective intelligence division had “numerous” contacts with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and other group members prior to Trump rallies in fall 2020, but that they were all part of common practice to inform the group of security protocols to follow.

[...]

The Secret Service found that multiple members of the organization, not just Rhodes, spoke to an agent in the protective intelligence division ahead of Trump rallies, the most recent conversation coming before a Dec. 12, 2020, rally.

  NBC

"Which we will provide." Perhaps they have those with the agency contact. But what about the messages that were erased from agents' phones?

Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi, now an NBC News analyst, said, “It’s common, prior to events, for law enforcement to talk to potential protest groups, or with groups acting in some security role. But regular contact with a militia type group like Oath Keepers, especially if treating them as a legitimate security partner, raises lots of concerns.”

That, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Maybe Biden should appoint a new IG at DHS

The January 6 Committee needs those texts.

Let's get those alternate measures started.

The coverup

Career officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s office of the inspector general added language about the missing [Secret Service] texts to a mandatory report to the Hill, along with sharp criticism of the Secret Service. But that draft language didn’t make it into the final document, which is public.

And the DHS inspector general’s office didn’t tell Congress about the deleted Secret Service text messages until July.

[...]

The language that didn’t make it into the final report to Congress included specific detail about resistance the watchdog office faced in obtaining Secret Service texts during “this reporting period,” meaning Oct. 1, 2021, through March 31. Over that time period, “Secret Service has resisted OIG’s oversight activities and continued to significantly delay OIG’s access to records, impeding the progress of OIG’s January 6, 2021 review,” the draft text opens.

The draft language then said that Secret Service interviewees refused to provide documents directly to the inspector general’s office, which amounted to “resistance to OIG’s oversight activities, for which justification has not been provided.”

[...]

Unlike the text Congress received, the draft language also said explicitly that the Secret Service’s resistance to oversight was ongoing.

“As outlined above, during this reporting period, the Secret Service has resisted OIG’s oversight activities and delayed the results of its review of the events of January 6, 2021,” it concluded.

[...]

In the end, the document that went to the Hill included just two sentences on the topic.

“During the previous reporting period, we included information about Secret Service’s significant delay of OIG’s access to Secret Service records, impeding the progress of our January 6, 2021 review,” reads the report Congress received. “We continue to discuss this issue with Secret Service.”

[...]

Congressional aides have obtained the same documents that the Project on Government Oversight obtained, according to two people familiar with the materials.

  Politico

Can't wait until the September January 6 Committee hearings. I'm hoping IT experts will have recovered the texts.

Absurd

No organization serious about preserving records leaves it up to individual employees.  And this is the federal government where preserving records is not just a matter of seriousness, it's a matter of law.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE  7/29:  Oh my.  Now the DHS.

Deleted Secret Service texts to go to January 6 committee

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Sunday that deleted Secret Service texts sent the day before and day of the insurrection will be turned over to the panel by Tuesday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleges that messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021 were erased as part of a planned system migration.

  The Hill

Sure.

“You can imagine how shocked we were to get the letter from the [DHS] Inspector General saying that he had been trying to get this information and that they had, in fact, been deleted after he’d asked for them,” Lofgren told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”

“I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they re-set their iPhones,” the congresswoman added. “That’s crazy. I don’t know why that would be.”

It wouldn't be unless they were trying to hide something.

The committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for the deleted messages Friday and will likely receive the documents Tuesday.

[...]

It wouldn't be unless they were trying to hide something.

The committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for the deleted messages Friday and will likely receive the documents Tuesday.

We'll see.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.