The Secret Service is compromised, it’s just a matter of how widespread the corruption and politicization is. During then-President-elect Joe Biden’s transition in late 2020, he apparently requested/demanded that when he came into office, many of his old vice-presidential Secret Service agents return. He also wanted entirely new people on Kamala Harris’s detail, and no one from the Trump or Pence details. It doesn’t even look like Mike Pence trusted his Secret Service detail, especially on January 6, 2021. His Secret Service detail tried to get him in the car at the Capitol and Pence flatly refused, saying: “I’m not getting in the car.” Pence clearly knew that Trump was trying to have him killed. And Pence’s first instinct was to assume the Secret Service was in on it. And now this – the Washington Post, CNN and other media outlets are reporting that the Secret Service erased their in-house texts from January 5th and 6th.

A government watchdog accused the U.S. Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week.

Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.

“The Department notified us that many U.S. Secret Service (USSS) text messages, from January 5 and 6, 2021 were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post. The letter was earlier reported on by the Intercept and CNN.

Cuffari emphasized that the erasures came “after” the Office of Inspector General requested copies of the text messages for its own investigation, and signaled that they were part of a pattern of DHS resistance to his inquiries. Staff members are required by law to surrender records so that he can audit the sprawling national security agency, but he said they have “repeatedly” refused to provide them until an attorney reviews them.

“This review led to weeks-long delays in OIG obtaining records and created confusion over whether all records had been produced,” he wrote, and offered to brief the House and Senate committees on the “access issues.”

The Secret Service’s text messages could provide insight into the agency’s actions on the day of the insurrection and possibly those of President Donald Trump. A former White House official last month told the House select committee investigating the assault on the Capitol that Trump knew his supporters were armed, wanted to lead the mob to the Capitol and physically assailed the senior Secret Service agent who told him he could not.

[From WaPo]

The Secret Service’s explanation is that in January and February 2021, they were doing upgrades which included giving new secure phones to their agents and in the transition, old texts were lost. Which is bullsh-t. As I said, compromised and politicized. It’s chilling. The Secret Service won’t even directly or indirectly confirm the story Cassidy Hutchinson told to the January 6th Committee about Trump assaulting a Secret Service chief and trying to grab the wheel of the car in an attempt to drive to the Capitol. Speaking of, a DC police officer has now corroborated that story.

I was watching All the President’s Men last night and towards the end of the movie, Bob Woodward demands that Deep Throat tell him everything he knows, and Deep Throat is like: it involves everyone, it involves every level of government, it involves the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States. I feel like we’re there. Everything that Trump touched is compromised and broken. Assume it involves every level of government.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.