The Washington Post reports that more texts that might have provided important evidence for the January 6th investigation have gone missing, and the details sure sound familiar:
Text messages for President Donald Trump’s acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails.
This discovery of missing records for the senior-most Homeland Security officials, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack…
The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with The Washington Post.
Just as in the case of the vanishing Secret Service texts, DHS Inspector General Cuffari failed to get to the bottom of why the texts were deleted and failed to notify Congress about the missing data. Interestingly, Cuffari joined DHS as IG during the Trump administration. He is a former policy advisor to AZ governors Ducey and Brewer.
Following an administration as thoroughly corrupt as Trump’s, I imagine it takes a while to de-rat the woodpile. Reps. Thompson and Maloney already requested that Cuffari recuse from the Secret Service investigation because they question his ability to conduct an independent and competent investigation. Now that Cuffari has provided ample cause, lets hope he gets the boot from the agency altogether.
Open thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think Carol Leonnig is going to replace Ronan Farrow as the phone message that makes people go, “Oh, shit”
Omnes Omnibus
I am hoping they get these guys for obstruction but also recover the deleted material and nail them on the substantive counts as well.
Old School
—
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed on all counts.
@Old School:
I’d like to report a murder.
JoyceH
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m an old straight lady, but I have such a crush on that beautiful young man! Geez, when Mia had that baby and named him Satchel of all things, who imagined he’d grow up to be so lovely, and such a menace to evil-doers!
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
NotMax
This was all over prime time MSNBC programs yesterday.
Geminid
Ken Cuccinelli is a bad actor. He was a terrible Virginia Attorney General 2009-2013, just a bible thumping asshole. Then he lost a close Governor race to Terry McAuliffe. He’s been hovering around conservative politics looking for trouble ever since. Even Republicans hate Cuccinelli, which is why he was only an acting assistant DHS secretary. He could never get confirmed by the Republican Senate.
Betty Cracker
@JoyceH: I loved Farrow’s response when asked about the rumor that Frank Sinatra is his real dad. He said couldn’t that be true of all of us?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JoyceH:
As I recall that wasn’t Mia’s idea, or his father’s. I mean, I’m sure Sinatra was a baseball fan, but….
zhena gogolia
@Old School:
Tweet responding to Chad:
dmsilev
Because a lot of these idiots were deeply incompetent, I figure we will soon learn that there are documents explaining exactly what they should all do to ‘accidentally lose’ their text message history. Probably signed by Jared.
Nelle
What? Is the NSA sitting on its hands and doesn’t have these “missing” texts? Ask New Zealand then or any other of the Five Eyes gang….. I’m always told that things digital leave fingerprints and never totally disappear.
I had an acquaintance who was murdered by her husband and they retrieved all of his deletions which pretty much sealed the deal (well, and their daughter, whom he thought was asleep, heard something). Would sledgehammers and throwing stuff in the ocean thoroughly disappear incriminating digital info?
Ken
I’ve not been keeping up on this story. Are these the text messages on Hillary’s server in Ukraine, or the ones on Hunter Biden’s laptop in New Jersey?
Geminid
There will be a vote in the House this evening on legislation including an assault weapons ban. There is little chance it will pass the Senate, but Democrats and Republicans are taking it very seriously and it’s thought the vote will be close.
Mallard Filmore
In the ‘every little footnote points to a rabbit hole that is SO productive’ department, DailyKos has a posting:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/29/2113348/-About-those-10-000-National-Guard-troops-Trump-ordered-deployed
Yutsano
*sigh*
There’s always a Chad…
Gravenstone
It should be little surprise that Trump and his enablers did everything they could to compromise DHS and its member enforcement agencies (just look at the horror show they unleashed at CBP). And while the device reset with a newly incoming administration may make for a semi-plausible excuse, we all know they’re just covering their criming to the best of their limited ability.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Related-ish:
WaPo: Russian national indicted for U.S. political influence operation
Hmm – these unindicted co-conspirators are politicians in Florida…
Almost Retired
@Yutsano: Always. I’ve never heard anyone say “Chad” without following it with “that guy’s a dick.”
JoyceH
I thought I kept up with the news pretty well but this vote today on an assault weapons ban fairly blindsided me. I think it’s great they’re getting everyone on record before the midterms!
Villago Delenda Est
“The boot”? Cuffari needs to be booted into a cell for a spell.
cain
@Ken: The next scandal is that Hunter’s laptop talked to Hillary’s server! THEY TALKED! LOTS OF PACKETS EXCHANGED!
Kelly
@Almost Retired: I have a lovely cousin Chad who plays the violin bluegrass classical whatever he can get out of that fiddle
Betty Cracker
@Nelle: The only case I can remember reading about where a suspect successfully obliterated evidence was Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter. IIRC, he took a hammer to his devices’ innards, and no amount of forensic work could recover the data.
Urza
I know little about the secure phones the government uses. A normal phone the txts would be stored by the phone company. A government phone shouldn’t they be stored on a server somewhere for normal record keeping? Why is it hard to retrieve them at all?
zhena gogolia
@Kelly: yes let’s not ruin another name like Karen
Urza
@Betty Cracker: The hammer method is only good for data that was never transmitted though. Txt messages had to go through servers and network switches to get to the other person, and unless its built explicitly to not keep them, should be replicated somewhere for retrieval late, like when you get a new phone.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
this is the correct take
Leto
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’m going through the article and it’s just brazen what they did/are probably still doing. Citizens United opened a pathway for outside foreign influence, and the Russians and Republicans made perfect partners.
I want all them to fucking burn. All of them.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Too late.
Chad has been the accepted testosteronic version of Karen for quite a spell.
trollhattan
Simply that based on name alone, “Chad Wolf” must be one of America’s most-punchable men.
Almost Retired
@Kelly: “except for that Chad. That one’s not a dick” :)
ETtheLibrarian
I don’t for a second believe that DHS doesn’t know how to reset government phones. Cellphones have been around for a while and they do this pretty regularly. This stretches the bounds of credulity.
But….for sake of argument lets say it is true. Then there are some people that don’t need to be working for the federal government particularly DHS.
This feels like the DHS equivalent of blaming the intern.
Gravenstone
I’d be good making this a literal outcome.
jnfr
I so much want to see the DOJ take this seriously. This shit is illegal and shouldn’t be ignored.
Scout211
@Old School: Chad Wolf, the acting director of DHS is blaming “DHS” for his missing texts?
Wasn’t he DHS? So confused. 🙄
Betty Cracker
@Leto: The St. Pete group in question is the Uhuru movement, who are notorious crackpots in the Tampa Bay area. I’m not saying this isn’t a serious case — it’s good that the feds busted the Russian who was attempting influence operations. But I find it somewhat comforting that the Russians have invested time and money in crackpots like the Uhurus, who get stomped every time they run for office because they’re nuttier than squirrel turds. That’s money Russians weren’t investing in turning Republicans.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
Me too😠😠😠
dmsilev
@Ken: Plot twist: It was Jimmy Carter and his secret DEC PDP-11.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I will giggle hysterically.
germy shoemangler
Member of the “problem solvers” caucus has an opinion:
UncleEbeneezer
scav
And guess who else had a series of unfortunate events with lost messages and backups and phones falling into the sea etc. — more whoopsies! of potential damning evidence? More show-biz shenanigans from the Vardy-Wagatha argy-bargy (which I finally failed to avoid today). Can we confidently distinguish the FFG’s covfefe administration from a celebrity kurfuffle? With a bit of techie update of the GWB admin’s outbreak of I cannot recallitis.
Gravenstone
@dmsilev: Flashback! The mainframe on our campus back in the dark ages was a PDP-11/44, if I recall correctly. For some reason, the CS department was inordinately proud of that factoid.
HumboldtBlue
@Yutsano:
Always.
Gravenstone
@Scout211: Ya know, he could be telling the truth and someone else at DHS is responsible for making all these troublesome texts vanish. Of course, whomever the responsible party(s) are need to be sussed out and charged accordingly.
Or, he could be another lying weasel who is just trying to deflect blame. In either event, investigate and act accordingly.
The Moar You Know
@Scout211: this is very likely true. I would bet money on it, in fact. The equipment would be wiped as is usual, to be returned to service. Looking at the actual equipment – the cell phones, etc – is looking in the wrong place. Especially now, 18 months after the fact.
What needs to be looked at is the cloud infrastructure that data resided on. AWS or Microsoft, most likely. And that could be easy to find, or it may be gone beyond all recovery. This being the Trump admin we’re talking about, I expect rank incompetence, but this is also DHS and they have access/flat-out employ some of the best of the best.
My opinion as someone who has done lower-level forensic work before: those texts/emails/voicemails – the entirety of digital evidence under the control of DHS/Secret Service – are gone beyond recovery. All of them. I would very much like to be proven wrong about that.
danielx
@Almost Retired:
Guy across the street from me is named Chad, and yeah, my impression is he’s kind of a dick.
bbleh
@Urza: Indeed, why should it be hard to retrieve them, when everybody involved agrees it was just a little “oopsie” that just happened to involve the two days surrounding an insurrection organized and supported by a President with whom they were particularly close, and nobody intended to violate the Presidential Records Act or subvert an investigation into the insurrection. I mean, that would be just the most remarkable coincidence!
Steeplejack
@Ken:
Well played.
Captain C
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Hi boss! We have Carol Leonnig, Ronan Farrow, and Isaac Chotiner on the line.”
“Tell them I just jumped out my window! Which I am doing right now!”
Jeffery
Zombie Rose Mary Woods strikes again.
UncleEbeneezer
@The Moar You Know: Yeah, my wife who manages device migrations for a major media company with 10’s of 1,000’s of devices when she first heard the original story was like “oh that shit’s gone.” Executives at her company NEVER do the proper backing up that they are supposed to do (because nobody can force them to) and there are always significant data losses.
That said, a former FBI agent on MuellerSheWrote’s podcast noted just yesterday that even if their official txts are gone, most SS also carry and use their own personal phones to reach out to family, friends etc. He thinks there is probably still a trove of information we could get by pursuing SS agents’ personal phone records for that period. After all, we know SS agents were calling/texting their families during 1/6 when things looked dire. Undoubtedly some used other phones that had cloud backup that could be accessed through their phone carriers.
UncleEbeneezer
Mike in NC
Everybody who worked for Trump spent a couple hours a day flushing toilets. Nothing unseemly was going on there. Nothing at all!
mrmoshpotato
Subpoena some cell phone companies. Enjoy their “Surprise, motherfuckers!” Arrest said motherfuckers.
HumboldtBlue
@Mike in NC:
Or burning documents and stealing items from the White House.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: that’s partially good news, but considering how deep the Russians have penetrated into the Republican party, I’m just going to continue to believe it’s all Russians/Republicans all the way down.
Edmund Dantes
@scav: W’s admin also lost millions of emails and cia torture tapes.
Leto
@UncleEbeneezer: how the fuck that assclown, or any Trumpov appointed/hired assclown, still has a fucking job is beyond me. Put them on the conservative wingnut welfare circuit post haste.
Layer8Problem
I worked at a shop which had, among lotsa other stuff, a call center, which as part of the “quality assurance” stuff the call center switches loved to tell you about before they connected you with an agent, recorded tons of conversations. And we had call detail records and piles of logs with metadata about who talked to whom and for how long. I’ll defer to the more knowledgeable but phone companies I believe save texts and call records for possible forensic interest; the Feds are supposed to be medieval about their systems’ stuff and their retention. How did they expect to just make it go away? Even if it were possible, someone’s got a name in a log on disks (plural) saying they did a BIG delete out of normal procedure.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
I think my calculator has more power than a PDP-11
I’m sure my cell phone does.
Baud
@Leto:
It’s called burrowing. They put him in the civil service, so he’s not removable at will
ETA: Never mind. I think you were talking about Cucinelli. I think the IG’s are also protected from removal though.
Aaron
Isn’t this the same DHS IG that investigated the violent police attack on pedestrians, when president orange clown wanted to give a speech in front of the WH neighboring church?
I believe the result of that one was “the gun went off by itself, no one knows why and no one is responsible.”
Layer8Problem
@Layer8Problem:
Hm, I meant medieval in the “go full Marcellus Wallace on the wayward federal employee” sense, not the “check with the blokes in the scriptorium and see if they got the new shipment of parchment yet” sense.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: This was in an e-newsletter I got today:
https://patch.com/florida/stpete/russian-misinformation-campaign-linked-st-pete-uhuru-house-report
NotMax
@Layer8Problem
Recently had occasion to purchase a service by phone*. Got the usual “This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes” message beforehand – BUT (and the first time have encountered this) just prior to completion of the transaction the person on the other end of the line said, “I’m now going to ask for your credit card information and need to inform you I will be stopping the recording while you provide the information and restarting the recording after I finish entering it into the system.”
*From a reputable firm. Somewhat oddly enough, the sole way to inquire about and sign up for it is by phone; not available to do online.
Leto
@Baud: true. I was a former civil service member, and that had protections. But one of the things that can be done wrt removing them is document the shit out of all the things they fuck up. And considering how most of them are underqualified hires, they’re going to fuck up more than normal. Like this instance is just one of the most obvious, but this big one will be preceded by tons of smaller ones along the way. All that adds up to being able to fire them. IF… if they’re documented. Key thing there
Edit: also yeah, burrowing. Ugh.
Captain C
@dmsilev:
Or by Beavis and/or Butthead in handwriting that looks suspiciously like Jared’s.
catclub
When I posted that the data should be on the phone company servers, I found that those are probably held no more than 90 days – which should have been plenty of time to subpeona them to be held. Why not?
I agree with Urza that NSA has them and/or other 5 eyes member.
Baud
lee
@Nelle: I work in IT. I’m not sure I could delete all copies of any file much less text messages.
Scout211
Nope.
Another Scott
@The Moar You Know: One thing I like to remember is: Text messages have a sender and a receiver. SS and DHS wiping some of their phones doesn’t matter if the received texts are on someone else’s phone who doesn’t work there.
We’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
jnfr
@The Moar You Know:
Damn. I hope you’re wrong too, but that is awfully plausible.
Another Scott
@Edmund Dantes: W’s 22 million e-mails were found.
AFAIK, you’re right about the CIA torture tapes.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
I’m thinking that the absence of this information is on the face of it enough to arrest all of these people for obstruction of justice, unless they can come up with the missing data. Every one of them!!
Mike in Pasadena
Yes.
Geminid
@Geminid: News from an hour ago:
The vote was 217-211. I guess not everyone was there. Sherman said that Democrats can afford 4 defections and that the vote boded well for final passage.
Henry Cuellar (TX-28) was a yes. That’s no way to keep a “C” NRA rating!
Miss Bianca
Open thread? Just got my second booster, waiting in the parking lot for my allotted time before driving off. Thank goodness that’s finally taken care of!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Miss Bianca: Congrats!
sab
Anyone remember Dick Cheney having a 24/7 months of shredding late in 2008?
Kent
According to the Urban Dictionary, the female version of Chad is “Stacy”
Baud
@Scout211:
Thanks. I guess one unfortunate things about a Dem president is that they care about appearances. At least he’s fireable at will if there’s evidence of wrongdoing.
Baud
@Geminid:
I hope it satisfies whoever it needs to satisfy.
Kelly
@Geminid: Schrader, scowl spit on the ground
Jim Appleton
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Slightly OT, but open thread and amusing so …
A curmudgeon uncle had a mutt named Satchel Paige, also a purebred dachshund named Willie Mays. The AKC in about 1965 would not register the wiener under that name, but they did for Sweet William of Centerfield.
Fleeting Expletive
Completely OT, thread before last, someone mentioned jangly guitars and named Leo Kottke as an example and made me ’bout fall on the floor. I’ve been trying to clean up my vinyl collection, mostly ’70’s rock, and I have one of his albums. My best friend’s older sister dated him in high school or college, and the record has a handwritten dedication to Connie on it. Now I’ll have to listen to it and see how jangly his guitar is.
Geminid
@Kelly: I think Schrader will be an unreliable vote for Democrats for the rest of this Congress. A sore loser.
Steve in the ATL
@Gravenstone: yeah, but no one associated with the trump administration gets the benefit of the doubt. Ever. To any degree.
trollhattan
@Fleeting Expletive:
Wow, great connection.
Leo was mostly noted for complicated acoustic finger picking and maybe odd tunings (I’m terrible at picking those out) and also for his hilarious liner notes. He, John Fahey, Robbie Basho, among a few others, had a certain niche.
I never thought of his style as jangly, TBH, but he’s a master, regardless.
eachother
I like Chad Stuart of Chad and Jeremy.
“A Summer Song” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfvL2oLeBYs
Baud
@Geminid:
Has he been voting against everything? Do you think he’ll vote against the reconciliation package?
trollhattan
@Kent: Abrams ain’t gonna like that.
Ken
I’m hoping that this is like Al Capone on tax evasion — they may skate on the treasonous plot to overthrow the government, but the Regulations for Government Record Keeping turn out to have far more severe punishments.
(Ideally there’s some secret cabal that passes judgment. “No, Mr. Wolf, you do not get a trial. We are the Archivists. Our authority comes from the original Constitution, not the highly-edited version we’ve allowed the public and Supreme Court to see. You will now be taken from this place and… filed.”)
Geminid
@Baud: I think the idea is to give Democratic incumbents a strong position to run on in the midterms, and to give Democratic challengers something to hammer Republican “Nay” voters with.
The legislation has other “crime fighting” measures also. They were subject to negotiations between two of their proponents, Spanberger and Gottheimer, and the Congressional Black Caucus, who may have had their own “asks.” They reached agreement yesterday and that set the stage for today’s vote.
Anotherlurker
@Fleeting Expletive: Which album? Pay close attention to his 12-string slide work. The man is on a different plane of musical existence.
UncleEbeneezer
@Fleeting Expletive: Check out Julian Lage. He usually plays a telecaster and loves to get a real jangly country-inspired tone. He’s just an absolute phenom on guitar. If you like this video, there are several videos from that same show that are all pretty killer.
Steve in the ATL
@lee: can you help me recover my saved game file from Leisure Suit Larry? I’ve been stressing about that since 1988.
Steve in the ATL
@Fleeting Expletive: jangly guitars are NEVER OT!
Geminid
@Baud: Schrader’s been a reliable vote for the Caucus so far. He’s been a pain in the ass in commitee work, especially on drug price controls. That’s one reason he lost his primary.
I expect Schrader will vote for the reconcilation package, but he’s been a crybaby about losing his primary to Jaime McLeod Skinner and he might gum up other votes. Once a Minnesota special election this fall returns a Republican to Congress (as expected), Democrats will be down to a 3 seat margin I believe.
trollhattan
@UncleEbeneezer:
I saw him live “accidentally” because Lage and Eldridge opened for Aoife O’Donovan. Knew nothing about them but they were, in fact, amazing.
Similarly, was introduced to Tony Rice when he was a member of the David Grisman Quintet.
ETA Ry Cooder probably gets an entire category of his own, considering the span of his work.
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker: IIRC, which I think I usually do but my wife disagrees vehemently, “uhuru” is a Swahili word meaning “freedom” and was used commonly in the 1960’s by Africans trying to free themselves from the yoke of European colonialism (and we all know King Leopold II is rotting in hell with hitler and Stalin). Did not know that a bunch of nutballs in St. Pete (St. Pete!) had co-opted the term.
Steeplejack
Ari Melber is doing a one-hour special, “Inside Trump’s Election Plot,” right now on MSNBC. It is bringing a lot of the threads together—maybe more informative for normies than hardcore jackals, but definitely interesting and filling in a lot of gaps. It will run again at 9:00 p.m. EDT.
James E Powell
@Steve in the ATL:
You got that right! Jangly Americana Rules.
NeenerNeener
@Steve in the ATL: ROFLMFAO
Omnes Omnibus
@NeenerNeener: Dude, I think he was serious.
zhena gogolia
@eachother: Right!
jnfr
@Steeplejack:
And – this amazed me because Ari is pretty “by the book” legally – he started out by stating flatly “This was a coup attempt.”
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: I saw him open for Frank Zappa in Green Bay, WI.
Fleeting Expletive
@Anotherlurker: It’s “Mudlark”, 1971. Connie and her twin graduated in ’63. I don’t know when the record came to me.
Steeplejack
@jnfr:
Yeah, he is calling it a months-long, ongoing coup attempt. Just now deployed the trope (slightly paraphrased): “If they’re not prosecuted, it was a training exercise.”
jnfr
@Steeplejack:
So true. Really glad to see Melissa Murray on with him now.
Kent
Since losing he has thrown a temper tantrum and endorsed Betsy Johnson, the “independent” former Democrat and most MAGA candidate in the Oregon governor’s race over the actual Democratic nominee. Johnson is basically a folksy rural Joe Lieberman with more right wing positions.
So fuck him.
NutmegAgain
@Gravenstone: oooo — we had a PDP10 running TOPS 20. Known locally as the DEC20. Loved it!
Anonymous At Work
Better idea is to do to the Trumpist rats what they did in Office Space to Milton: fix the bug where they get paid and have authority.
Sally
( And I mean hanging by a slender thread …. not hanged Chad )
SFAW
@Fleeting Expletive:
I’m not exactly sure what “jangly” means, vis-a-vis guitar, but Kottke’s and Crenshaw’s style were not particularly similar, outside of Kottke sometimes playing a six-string.
I wouldn’t say they’re as similar as Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis were to Keith Emerson, but It’s probably close.
SFAW
@trollhattan:
With good reason. It wasn’t.
Kottke “jangly”? JHC
Without a doubt.