The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog delayed the process of recovering deleted Secret Service text messages and notifying Congress about them, the Washington Post reported Friday. The Secret Service and DHS Inspector General Joseph Koufari clashed earlier this month after Koufari wrote a letter to lawmakers saying the Secret Service had deleted text messages from the day and before the 2021 Capitol uprising. said the deleted text messages were due to a pre-planned system migration. The Post, citing unnamed sources, said Cuffari’s office initially planned to ask DHS agencies, which include the Secret Service, to hand over their phones in early February in an effort to recover the lost data. But by late February, the bureau decided not to proceed with collecting the phones, sources told the agency. On July 13, Cuffari’s office sent a letter about the deleted messages to the House committee investigating on January 6. Cuffari’s letter, however, did not mention that the office was aware of the deleted messages as early as December, according to The Post. Anonymous sources told CNN that Cuffari knew them as early as May 2021. Cuffari also did not mention in the letter that additional text messages from two top DHS officials were missing, The Post also reported. On July 16, the House committee issued a subpoena for Secret Service text messages. The Secret Service has so far provided only one text message to the committee. The House committee said deleting text messages could be an illegal violation of the Federal Records Act of 1950. “The process for retaining content prior to this purge appears to have been inconsistent with federal record retention requirements and may be a potential violation of the Federal Records Act,” said spokespeople Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, president and vice president of the committee. a statement. Thompson, who is also the House Homeland Security chairman, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the House Oversight chairman, have asked Cuffari to recuse himself from the investigation. They said his delayed disclosure to Congress about inaccessible Secret Service files cast “serious doubts about his independence and ability to effectively conduct such an important investigation.” DHS and Cuffari’s office did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
