It’s been well over three years since the wildly controversial January 6 riot outside the Capital building took place, and Americans are still watching the drama unfold.
In a recently unsealed testimony, a whistleblower with the United States Secret Service revealed that the federal agency engaged in cover-up efforts related to the investigation into the January 6, 2021, Capital riot. The new evidence comes in the form of a redacted report published on August 2 by the Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky raised the question earlier this year as to whether messages related to the incident—dated between February and April 2021—were deleted in criminal obstruction of Congress, as members had requested such communications prior to their removal.
New whistleblower testimony suggests that Massie was on point with his allegations. According to the Secret Service whistleblower, the federal agency confiscated his phone months after the riot took place and amid the Inspector General’s investigation into the agency. The Secret Service was under the leadership of Kimberly Cheatle at the time.
The whistleblower explained that every text and email he had on his phone that were related to January 6 were removed from the device. He was working on the day of the riot, he said, and “turn[ed] in my phone” a few months later, which he “never saw again.”
The whistleblower also expressed confusion that the agency claimed the wiping of certain communications was due to a software update. He added that the reason he was given for turning in his device was said to be a result from the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe, leading them to provide “a different phone” to him.
When asked if he thought this move was “suspicious,” the whistleblower said, “of course.” He further explained that, up to that point in the chaotic events surrounding the riot, he was “still a believer” in the good intentions of the Secret Service. However, he said that his faith in the agency was broken after he “dealt with” certain “corruption.”
The whistleblower testimony comes two years after the internal watchdog for the DHS revealed that the Secret Service deleted messages from January 5 and January 6—after the group had requested all electronic records and communications related to that day.
This July 2022 update on the investigation came through a congressional letter in which the DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari disclosed that he was told most of these messages were deleted amid a so-called “device-replacement program.” At the time of the revelation, the Secret Service rejected accusations against it and claimed that the requested communications were not gone for good and had been preserved.
All this scrutiny surrounding the federal security agency predated the latest scandal in the organization, which accuses the Secret Service of failing to follow protocol and adequately provide protection at the Pennsylvania Donald Trump rally which resulted in a failed assassination attempt of the former president and killed an innocent attendee.
Amid that disaster, Cheatle resigned as director of the agency, although she remains linked to the numerous security failures of the Secret Service that occurred in the past few years.
