Court records posted on the watchdog group American Oversight’s website show the Pentagon “wiped” the government-issued phones of senior Defense Department and Army officials tasked with mobilizing the National Guard to respond to the attack on Capitol Hill, including then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The deletion was apparently done in accordance with Department of Defense and Army policy for departing employees, according to records that state: “text messages were not preserved.” The admission comes as a blow not only to U.S. surveillance efforts to release critical communications about the attack, but also to a January 6 House special committee that had asked Pentagon leaders to preserve and share all documents that related to the rebellion. It also makes the Defense Department the latest known branch of the federal government, including the Secret Service and other parts of the Department of Homeland Security, to delete records that could help investigators piece together what happened on Jan. 6 — and the extent to which President Donald Trump was responsible for the delays in the response. “From the reports about the Secret Service and senior DHS officials, it’s pretty clear that this is not just a State Department problem, not just an Army problem, but a multi-agency problem,” said Dara Silvestre, a spokeswoman for the US Supervision. The Secret Service cannot retrieve texts. There are no new details for the January 6 committee On Tuesday, the group’s executive director, Heather Sawyer, wrote in a letter calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into DOD’s “failure to preserve the text messages of several high-ranking officials on or around the day of the Jan. 6 attack.” .” “The apparent deletion of records since January 6 by multiple agencies reinforces the need for an interagency investigation into the possible destruction of federal records,” the letter continues. Last week, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) sent a similar request to Garland, asking him to investigate the missing text messages from the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. An Army spokeswoman said: “It is our policy not to comment on ongoing litigation.” A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the deletions were just a standard “procedure.” “No one was trying to hide or conceal anything,” the official said. “That would be a false narrative.” American Oversight’s case began as a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed with various government agencies less than a week after Trump-inspired rioters stormed Capitol Hill to prevent President Biden from being declared the winner of the 2020 election. Among the documents sought were text messages and Signal, Silvestre said. The deletions appear to have been made after the FOIA requests were made. Texts from January 6 to Wolf and Cuccinelli of Trump Homeland Security are missing The Defense Department has produced a handful of heavily redacted emails, but no phone communications, according to the group. The Pentagon’s admission that it had wiped the phones was included as part of a joint status report submitted in March, but was only made public by American Oversight on Tuesday. Silvestre said that in the intervening months, the team has tried to work with the agencies “to try to get them to release as much as possible,” as there are some phone records believed to have been preserved. The lawsuit isn’t just seeking records from former senior executives like Miller and McCarthy. He also requested the telephone contact of General James McConville, the Army chief of staff, and Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the Army chief of staff, who are still at the Pentagon and whose messages and secure messages should not be deleted. . According to court records, the Army began an investigation into those records last September, and another court filing to update the status of that investigation is expected next month. Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
