The Washington Post is reporting that text messages for President Donald Trump’s acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Citing four unnamed sources and email records, the news outlet reported that the phones of the Homeland Security leaders were wiped, much like those of Trump’s Secret Service agents.
The discovery ofthe missing records, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, The Post noted.
Rep. Chair Bennie Thompson (R-Miss.), the chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, called the deletions “troubling.”
“It is extremely troubling that the issue of deleted text messages related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not limited to the Secret Service, but also includes Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, who were running DHS at the time,” Thompson told The Post in a statement.
The latest revelation of missing texts comes a day after the House Jan 6 panel reportedly interviewed Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, and former White House official Mick Mulvaney, who resigned following the insurrection.
House investigators are also negotiating with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a closed-door interview that could happen as soon as this week.
