Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Jan. 6 committee receives more Secret Service records
The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol assault has received additional material from the Secret Service in response to a subpoena, but members aren’t saying whether it sheds new light on missing agency text messages.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat, on Wednesday described some of the records as “relevant” and worthwhile to the panel’s ongoing probe of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
But neither Lofgren nor another person familiar with the development would say if the records pertain to erased Secret Service text messages or whether they confirm disputed testimony by a former White House aide.
The Secret Service has been in the spotlight since former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that she was told the day of the insurrection that Trump exploded at Secret Service agents who refused to take him from a rally near the White House to the Capitol to join protesters.
The committee also was digging into security concerns surrounding then-vice President Mike Pence, who had gone to the Capitol to preside over the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. There was testimony that Pence disagreed with the Secret Service agents on the scene to get into his armored vehicle during the attack, fearing he’d be spirited away.
That raised questions about whether removing Pence might have figured in plans to interfere with the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and whether Trump may have somehow co-opted the agency.
But as the committee was seeking more details, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson announced in July it was subpoenaing the Secret Service for records upon learning some agency text messages from Jan. 5 and 6 were allegedly missing. Included in the subpoena were demands not only for texts and other data, but also “any after-action reports” issued “pertaining or relating in any way to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.”