If the Secret Service did this as an organization, might be better to just scrap it and get a new, less-secret agency to be bodyguards. https://t.co/aVDlYnFjgG
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 14, 2022
… Also, the National Archives on Tuesday sought more information on “the potential unauthorized deletion” of agency text messages. The U.S. government’s chief record-keeper asked the Secret Service to report back to the Archives within 30 days about the deletion of any records, including describing what was purged and the circumstances of how the documentation was lost.
The law enforcement agency, whose agents have been embroiled in the Jan. 6 investigation because of their role shadowing and planning President Donald Trump’s movements that day, is expected to share this conclusion with the Jan. 6 committee in response to its Friday subpoena for texts and other records…
Many of its agents’ cellphone texts were permanently purged starting in mid-January 2021 and Secret Service officials said it was the result of an agencywide reset of staff telephones and replacement that it began planning months earlier. Secret Service agents, many of whom protect the president, vice president and other senior government leaders, were instructed to upload any old text messages involving government business to an internal agency drive before the reset, the senior official said, but many agents appear not to have done so.
The result is that potentially valuable evidence — the real-time communications and reactions of agents who interacted directly with Trump or helped coordinate his plans before and during Jan. 6 — is unlikely to ever be recovered, two people familiar with the Secret Service communications system said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters without agency authorization…
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has said that the agency did not maliciously delete text messages and that the Secret Service had lost some data because of a previously planned agencywide replacement of staff telephones. The replacement began a month before the Office of Inspector General made his request, he said last week.
Guglielmi acknowledged that some data on the phones had been lost in the changeover but emphasized that “none of the texts” the OIG was seeking were missing.
Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) signaled that the subpoena could resolve the discrepancies in the accounts between the OIG and the Secret Service, which falls under DHS..,
I’m sure this is just my age and recency bias, but I definitely feel like the secret service has gone seriously downhill ever since the patriot act moved them from Treasury to the then *new* DHS. https://t.co/pZO4dyeMuU
— sam (@verysimple) July 15, 2022
The Guardian, last weekend — “Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel told”:
… At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.
The inspector general also said that though the secret service opted to have his office do a review of the agency’s response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.
After the inspector general raised his complaints, he then discussed the feasibility of reconstructing the texts. But the issues so alarmed the select committee that the panel moved hours later to subpoena the Secret Service, according to participants at the briefing.
The string of fast-paced developments on Capitol Hill reflected how the erasure of the Secret Service texts – first disclosed in a letter to Congress by the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari – has become a top priority for the congressional inquiry into January 6…
But the select committee questioned the Secret Service’s emphasis on that date, the participants said, and noted in the subpoena letter that the request for electronic communications in fact first came from Congress, ten days after the Capitol attack.
Members on the select committee were privately skeptical of the notion that the Secret Service managed to inadvertently erase key messages during a 10-day period that was among perhaps the most tumultuous for the agency, the participants said.
If some of the texts were deliberately erased after the 16 January 2021 request, that could amount to obstruction of a congressional investigation, one of the select committee’s members added on Friday…
The Secret Service endured a decade of controversy from a prostitution scandal and White House security missteps during the Obama years to allegations of politicization under Trump. Recent testimony has cast doubt on the credibility of the agency.https://t.co/inMw2IczZ5
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) July 2, 2022
…We’ll see where this story leads, but the Secret Service has long since forfeited the benefit of the doubt. Agencies try to flout their watchdogs all the time, and their excuses are frequently flimsy. But deleting records like this is pretty brazen, and if you’re willing to take the Secret Service’s excuse at face value, I’ve got some
counterfeit $20 billsvery real legal tender I’d like to offer you at a very reasonable price.The disappearance of the texts fits with the agency’s recent pattern of behavior. As the Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, the foremost chronicler of the contemporary Secret Service, has written, “The Secret Service’s claim of being politically independent … was tested by Trump’s tenure in the White House.” In one major example, a high-ranking Secret Service official, Tony Ornato, made a deeply unusual move from a civil-service job to being deputy White House chief of staff. New agents were assigned to Biden’s protective detail when he took office, reportedly because of concerns that the old agents were too politically close to Trump…
The agency’s independence isn’t the only thing that looks shaky: so does the other pillar of its reputation, competence. This week, an employee staffing Biden’s trip to Israel was sent home after a reported physical altercation with a woman there. (This isn’t the first time an employee has been shipped back to the States for bad behavior.) In April, the FBI alleged that two men impersonating federal agents had fooled the Secret Service. And earlier this month, Biden announced that the agency’s chief was leaving to join the social-media company Snap (where at least he won’t have to worry about preserving his messages)…
These incidents are just part of a string of snafus dating back more than a decade. During the Obama administration, the Secret Service allowed people to fire shots at the White House, permitted an armed guard to ride an elevator with the president, got into trouble overseas, and had car accidents after drinking. Officials were repeatedly sacked—including one who was investigating agents visiting sex workers overseas, until he himself was arrested in a prositution investigation…
… “The ongoing investigation into the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has spurred new attention to the political independence of the Secret Service. Last week, Leonnig and The Post’s Maria Sacchetti reported on a new eyebrow-raising development: The agency had deleted a number of text messages sent to and received by agents during the time period of the attack. This was attributed to a “device-replacement program” — turning over old devices and receiving new ones — but the agency’s inspector general said that the deletions occurred only after his office had requested the texts.
In a statement, the Secret Service said it is “cooperating … in every respect” with the investigation. It also said that the migration “was well under way” when the inspector general’s request was made…
“One Secret Service officer called the armed protesters ‘patriots’ seeking to undo an illegitimate election, and falsely claimed to her friends that disguised Antifa members had started the violence,” Leonnig reported in “Zero Fail.” “One presidential detail agent reposted a popular anti-Biden screed that criticized Democrats for their relentless attacks on Trump.”
An agent “reposted the image of an upside-down American flag, a military signal for extreme distress,” she added, accompanied by language criticizing coronavirus containment measures and the political left. The post concluded: “Then they accused *us* of the coup.” That some Secret Service agents would be sympathetic to the outgoing president should not have come as a surprise, Leonnig reports, since “many agents were cheering for Trump’s reelection.”…
Ornato is now back at the Secret Service, serving as assistant director of the agency’s training department…
The Thin Black Duke
Nuke the Secret Service from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
SpaceUnit
This is not acceptable. Heads need to roll.
And then we need to find those goddamn texts.
Nettoyeur
Clean house top to bottom. Fire, investigate and indict Ornato. Interrogate the whole Secret Svc to find the Trump activists. Non cooperators to be fired and investigated. Move the Service back to Treasury, away from the paramilitary DHS. I would think this can be an Exec Order.
Scout211
As I posted in one of the downstairs threads, a forensic expert said most deleted data can be recovered, except when your data is professionally wiped clean and that usually is quite expensive. I wonder if the Secret Service used taxpayer money to pay for a professional cleaning service?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Chris Hayes was talking about this tonight, and he said the SS actually has a unit devoted to forensic work with data.
Dangerman
I’m old enough to remember when the USSS was asked to testify about Clinton getting his privates polished.
Scout211
@Scout211:
I forgot the link to the article that quoted the expert.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111778878/secret-service-deleted-messages-january-6-is-that-data-really-gone
oatler
“Too Rotten To Fail”
Mike S
No wonder every republican voted against the bill to root out neo nazis and white nationalist from law enforcement and the military. They want to have the Schutzstaffel in place and being fiscally conservative they want to save money by not changing the initials on agency letter head.
zhena gogolia
Bring Zelenskyy in to show them how to do it.
AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team
Sending love to you all. Rough 24 hrs here w gut pain and resulting difficulty sleeping.
Hope you’re all well.
Parfigliano
The SS is just a fancy name for federal officer. They are cops thus by nature dirty.
Another Scott
TheHill‘s take:
(Emphasis added.)
Records management and hanging out with hookers are two very different things. Yacking about politics on the job and blowing off oversight are two different things. Wikipedia tells me the Secret Service has 7000+ employees and a budget over $2.3B. It’s a big beast. Anecdotes of misbehavior are troubling, and it seems clear that a housecleaning is needed, but they aren’t proof of that anything was done to interfere with Congress’s investigation. The devil’s in the details (what was the SS policy about retaining text messages (were they “Official Records” or not); who did the wiping of the phones and were they told about the subpoenas; etc.).
We’ll see what happens.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@The Thin Black Duke:
DHS has been an abject failure as an organization. It’s way past time to return the various police forces that make up the agency back to the places they were taken from.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Thin Black Duke: Seconded.
ian
@Nettoyeur:
What do you base either of these assumptions upon?
Villago Delenda Est
Here’s the problem. We don’t believe you. We have no reason to believe you. This horseshit about no backups is in the literal sense, incredible.
Another Scott
@AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: (I’m sorry if I’ve forgotten about you discussing this before.) Have you been able to get this checked out?
Get well soon, and feel better!
Best wishes,
Scott.
CaseyL
@Roger Moore: Combining everything under one umbrella agency has been a disaster. I will never ever forgive and forget that the reason to establish DHS was to cover up the negligence and incompetence of the Bush II Administration – specifically, Condi Rice, who was responsible for coordinating intelligence between agencies and apparently didn’t know how; and Bush himself, who desperately needed a scapegoat to blame for the gaping security lapses around 9-11.
Steeplejack
Somebody can feel free to explain to me why this is ridiculous, but my fantasy is that this is a golden opportunity for the NSA to come forward with a “Well, actually, we do record everything . . .” and produce the missing texts.
satby
@AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: I hope you’re getting good treatment and feel better soon AJ!
Edmund Dantes
This is the we’re so fucking incompetent at our jobs defense that if you believe it you should fire them for being that fucking dumb. Since they’ve proven they don’t have the mental capacity to anticipate something being needed enough for them to be responsible for protecting the president which requires that same type of thinking and planning.
Anotherlurker
I just went to the S.S.’s website. They don’t have an email listed.
I guess they are afraid of feedback from taxpayers.
They are no better than Uvalde PD or NYPD.
Low-life posers. Nazis. Traitors.
Ohio Mom
@AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: I’m with Another Scott, have you called your doctor? That is what they are there for. And you don’t have to wait until the office opens, they take calls any time.
I just had this conversation with my MIL last week. Sometimes I wonder hue she made it to 90.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Indict him for what?
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
The Secret Service as an agency didn’t maliciously delete any records, but it allowed people who were involved in an investigation decide for themselves which of their information was actually official records that needed to be preserved. It’s total bullshit. I’m old enough to remember there being a huge political scandal when a government official was allowed (or rather her lawyers were allowed) to decide which of her messages were personal and which were official. We never heard the end of it. But I guess it’s fine when the USSS does it. Fucking double standards.
hells littlest angel
Mossad, if you’re listening …
Tony G
This is absolute bullshit on several different levels. Those text messages are on a server, not on the devices themselves. (Do they really think we’re that stupid?). If the server was administered in some halfway competent manner then there are backups. Has the Secret Service always been this corrupt? Is this yet another agency that was corrupted by Trump, or does the rot go back decades? Whoever in the Secret Service has authority to order the deletion of these messages — perhaps the CIO — needs to be arrested and charged with a felony. If (as was likely the case) he was ordered to do so by a higher up then give him the opportunity to testify in return for a lesser charge. And so on up the chain of command. As for the rank and file agents, investigate the hell out of them. Of course, the FBI, the agency that would logically do that, is probably equally corrupt. We are truly fucked as a country.
Another Scott
@Villago Delenda Est: There are federal rules about “official records”. Those have to be backed up and retained. Things that are not “official records” are not subject to the same rules. There are at least two things here with the SS and Jan 6 Committee:
Until we know the answers to those 2 questions, we’re getting upset without good cause (IMHO).
I’ll start getting incandescent when people like Raskin start getting incandescent.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tony G
@Tony G: This is yet another example of a widespread problem in this country (and undoubtedly in other countries as well). Law enforcement agencies attract men (almost always men) who are eager to misuse their power and authority. It’s widespread at all levels, from the local cops to the federal government.
Another Scott
@Anotherlurker: They list dozens of phone numbers. It’s not like they’re hiding.
It’s not clear to me who you would want to e-mail.
SecretService.gov/ReportMisconduct:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Dangerman:
OH CONSENSUAL COCKSUCKING-GATE!…
CaseyL
Since this is an Open Thread, I want to follow up on a story I mentioned yesterday: the Washington State GOP erecting signs at ballot drop boxes claiming to have them under surveillance, in a transparent attempt to intimidate voters. As I mentioned, I called the King County Elections office, and emailed the King County Prosecutor’s Office.
Today the Seattle Times (which broke the original story) reported that the King County Elections office will officially ask the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate, and charge, the people who put up the signs. And the Chair of the King County GOP office has disavowed the whole thing, saying it was done without his knowledge. Which is bullshit, of course, but it’s nice that he was made to say so. (And he says he’s disbanded his county party’s “election integrity” committee – which is also nice, but which I also don’t believe, and expect them to pop up again under another name.)
Tony G
@SpaceUnit: The technical problem is that the backups (which I assume were taken — otherwise they are completely incompetent) are not kept forever. How long the backups are kept will depend upon the backup protocol. I’ve seen situations in which backups are kept for as long as two years. It depends. But, absolutely, whoever order the deletion of those text needs to be arrested and charged with a felony. Is there any law enforcement agency that is sufficiently uncorrupted to do that though?
Anotherlurker
@Another Scott: I cannot report knowledge of agent mis-conduct so I will not misuse that phone number. To me, that would be like using 911 to report a jaywalker.
However, as a citizen and taxpayer I have the right to express my disgust at the way the agency seems to be saying: “Fuck you, January 6 Committee. We destroyed information and there is shit you can do about it.”
The quote is made-up, obviously.
Steve in the ATL
@CaseyL: Concerned Citizens Council would be a good name for their rebranding!
Tony G
@SpaceUnit: The technical problem is that the backups (which I assume were taken — otherwise they are completely incompetent) are not kept forever. How long the backups are kept will depend upon the backup protocol. I’ve seen situations in which backups are kept for as long as two years. It depends. But, absolutely, whoever order the deletion of those text needs to be arrested and charged with a felony. Is there any law enforcement agency that is sufficiently uncorrupted to do that though?
@Nettoyeur:
Tony G
@SpaceUnit: xxx. The technical problem is that the backups (which I assume were taken — otherwise they are completely incompetent) are not kept forever. How long the backups are kept will depend upon the backup protocol. I’ve seen situations in which backups are kept for as long as two years. It depends. But, absolutely, whoever order the deletion of those text needs to be arrested and charged with a felony. Is there any law enforcement agency that is sufficiently uncorrupted to do that though?
@Nettoyeur:
Tony G
@Tony G: Sorry. Duplicate comment. (I said it once, I said it twice.)
SpaceUnit
@Tony G:
Good question. I don’t know.
What I do know is that the tone that agency is striking in its public statements is bullshit.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Steeplejack: that’s what I was thinking — where’s the NSA when you need them?
Bill Arnold
@Scout211:
If the used devices were fed through a disintegrator, no recovery would be possible, especially if the debris were then made into a paste/slurry. (I don’t know the current approved destruction procedures.) Highly sensitive material/devices can be destroyed with an irreversible chemical reaction, e.g. a thermite of some sort.
Another Scott
@SpaceUnit: Indeed Guglielmi is not doing his job very well at all. He seems to not realize that Congress decides whether the SS exists or not.
“How do they know texts were sent?” he asks. Well, think about it – texts involve a sender and a receiver…
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
D.J. Trump was trying to corrupt the Secret Service into becoming a Praetorian Guard. IMO.
Stupid of him, and stupid for (what appears to be) a aignificant number of Trump cultists in the organization to agree.
SpaceUnit
@Another Scott:
Yep.
As though anyone would buy into the idea that no text were being exchanged between its agents on January 5th or 6th when all hell was breaking loose.
Somebody at the very top of that agency is extending their middle finger.
Bill Arnold
@Anotherlurker:
They have a twitter account.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Carol Leonnig– Washington Post reporter who wrote a book on the Secret Service just a couple years ago– is on MSNBC and sounds much more suspicious of the the texts story than she did yesterday
ETA: she just said that trump, and JarVanka, wanted to name Ornato director of the Secret Service. Ornato turned down the job, but recommended current– if lame-duck– Director James Murray
Anotherlurker
Thanks for that info but I have less than 0 interest in Twitter. I’ve severely cut back on my exposure to social media.
I actually feel much better for it.
@Bill Arnold:
mrmoshpotato
@AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: I blame the Mustard Search and Rescue team.
Hope it’s nothing major.
Nettoyeur
Secret Svc is in Exec Branch. Moved from Treasury to DHS. Not sure what Congress role was in that. Maybe just budget. DHS is breeding ground for Storm Troopers. Exec shd at least look at moving back to Treasury.
catclub
I find it very hard to believe that the telephone companies that transmit the texts do not save them.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
I worked for a small company, and most backups had to be kept for seven years, for federal auditing purposes. The government doesn’t follow the procedures it imposes on contractors?
Dan B
@CaseyL: Thanks for your followup. I expect that we may need to do a Dan Savage / 60’s style Zap and show up to the GOP meetings, ingratiate ourselves (yuck) and then show up in drag, as radical right witches, mud puppy worshippers, GOP Jews for banning “Liberal Cuisine”, etc. After informing MSM and social media. Their dark underbelly must be exposed to light and ridicule. They have no logic, just fear and a concomitant lost for control. Their illogical needs exposure.
ian
@Nettoyeur:
Sure, I can agree if Ornato broke the law he should be held accountable. Your first post was more in the ‘lock him up’ category. As regarding SS location within executive branch, that is decided by acts of congress. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 put DHS together, and included SS within. A bill by Graham and Feinstein would move it back to treasury, not sure of the status of that bill (if it passed Senate, house, and so forth).
Here is more on the Graham and Feinstein bill
https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/department-homeland-security-risk-secret-service-moves-back/story?id=70941421
ChicagoPat
@SpaceUnit: how is this even possible? You’re telling me the NSA can’t find copies of them somewhere? What use are they then? I’m sure several of our allies that spy on us have copies they could mysteriously submit to the NYT or Washington Post.
Booger
@Another Scott:
Booger
@Tony G:
Well there’s your problem right there.
brantl
@AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: Good luck, bud, we’re all pulling for you. Have you seen a doctor, yet?
brantl
They’re covering their own asses, they don’t want the messaging about seeing guns among the “protesters” coming out.
SFAW
@CaseyL:
That’s good news, so far – until the WA GQP tries an end-around. [Which they likely will, of course.] Thanks for your efforts getting the various authorities involved!
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack: No Such Agency.