Now we learn that text messages from Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are "missing." Not by happenstance but circumstance, the period for which the texts are absent were the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection — same as with Secret Service agents' text messages. The Washington Post reports this morning that the messages "were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered."
Nor is that the whole pestilence of the story; the stench intensifies and widens.
DHS notified its inspector general in late February that the secretary and deputy secretary's texts went missing in a "reset" of the agency's phones when both left their jobs in January 2021. The department’s undersecretary of management also notified the inspector general that these text messages, as well as those from undersecretary Randolph "Tex" Alles, the former Secret Service director, were no longer accessible because of the phone reset.
Yet the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, failed to insist that the department's leadership explain why the records were not preserved, nor did he investigate possible ways to recover the data, nor did he notify Congress of the government records' destruction. In December 2021, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari's office of its deletion of thousands of agents and employees' text messages in a similar phone "reset." Only in mid-July did Cuffari notify Congress, "despite multiple congressional committees' pending requests for these records," reports the Post.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, called this latest revelation "extremely troubling."
It's also extremely indictable. Aside from obstruction of justice, it seems that DHS and Secret Service officials could be charged with violating 36 CFR § 1230.12. This, from Cornell Law, pertains to 18 U.S.C. 2071:
"(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
"(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
Writes the Post, "Neither Cuccinelli nor Wolf responded to requests for comment. DHS’s Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to requests for comment."
It should also be noted that Wolf, in disgust, resigned from his job five days after the insurrection. This could have a bearing on his personal responsibility in the text-wipeout scheme. Still, his refusal to comment raises questions about his activities leading up to the insurrection.