House Select Committee on 1/6

[jackd]

I'm not sure that's inappropriate. In any legal proceeding, there is a court reporter and either side can get a transcript. Apparently that's not true with the committee. Maybe they are concerned that Mastriano's recording could be tampered with. A solution would be to offer a copy of the committee's recording or transcript or both.

[LFC]

Aug 8, 2022 15:08:25 GMT jackd said:

I'm not sure that's inappropriate. In any legal proceeding, there is a court reporter and either side can get a transcript. Apparently that's not true with the committee. Maybe they are concerned that Mastriano's recording could be tampered with. A solution would be to offer a copy of the committee's recording or transcript or both.

I'd say it's inappropriate with the right-wing's track record of selectively snipping audio and video. If they were honest brokers in any way, shape, or form then it shouldn't be a big deal but there's just a point where you have to accept that they aren't and will do anything to derail reality.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 8, 2022 16:35:11 GMT LFC said:

Aug 8, 2022 15:08:25 GMT jackd said:

I'm not sure that's inappropriate. In any legal proceeding, there is a court reporter and either side can get a transcript. Apparently that's not true with the committee. Maybe they are concerned that Mastriano's recording could be tampered with. A solution would be to offer a copy of the committee's recording or transcript or both.

I'd say it's inappropriate with the right-wing's track record of selectively snipping audio and video. If they were honest brokers in any way, shape, or form then it shouldn't be a big deal but there's just a point where you have to accept that they aren't and will do anything to derail reality.

There are those who say the 1/6 committee did nothing but selectively snip audio and video.  That's essentially true but the committee was not running a trial. It was reporting on its findings.  A written report would be equally selective so I think the argument is nonsense.

As to this dude wanting to have his very own video of his performance I'd say that's a definite no go.  Mastriano would simply posture and campaign talk his way through any interview so that he could use snips as campaign pieces.  He wouldn't be able to help himself any more than Alex Jones could stop himself from doing his Infowars schtick while on the witness stand in an actual trial.(until he started trying to minimize possible damage awards against him and then says he was wrong, kids really did die)

[jackd]

Of course, if he's charged, they'll have to give it to him anyway. During the hearing, if he tries to "perform" they can shut him down and turn off his mike and cite him for contempt of court if he refuses to answer the questions without a valid objection such as 5th Amendment. As you point out, there are those who say the committee just selectively snips. Refusing him a copy reinforces that objection and makes the committee look unfair to unsophisticated voters. Those are people who should not be politically ignored, in my opinion.

[LFC]

Doug Mastriano will not tell a lie (except when campaigning) so ... he just doesn't say anything. We all know the odds are that his lawyer is just spewing Grade-A bullshit.

Trump ally Doug Mastriano's virtual appearance Tuesday before the House January 6 committee only lasted about 15 minutes and "he didn't answer a single question," according to a source familiar with the matter.

Mastriano's attorney cut off the virtual appearance soon after it began, the source said. His lawyer, Tim Parlatore, took issue with several procedural matters related to the deposition, and raised questions about the legality of the subpoena that Mastriano received from the panel, the source added.

"We were there for 15 minutes. It was clear that the committee was unable to comply with the regulations regarding use of deposition authority and moreover has no interest in complying with the regulations," Parlatore said. "We're happy to provide the information if they can either do it fairly and legally or if we can reach a resolution on how to do a voluntary interview which minimizes the risk of election interference."

Mastriano is the GOP gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, and was a central player supporting former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Mastriano was also among the mob of Trump supporters on Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021, during the insurrection, though he didn't go into the Capitol itself and hasn't been charged with any crimes.

CNN previously reported that Mastriano's appearance was expected to be brief and unproductive because Mastriano's camp and the committee were at an impasse over issues like whether Mastriano could independently videotape or record his appearance.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment about Mastriano's appearance.

[LFC]

Yeah, this doesn't look like it's winding down anytime soon.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee can access former President Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.

The 3-0 ruling from the federal appeals court rejected Trump’s previous appeal of a lower court’s ruling that also green lit the committee’s access to the former president’s tax returns. Since 2019, Trump has argued against releasing his tax returns to congressional investigators in court.

Trump, however, can still appeal the latest ruling, either to the Supreme Court or to the full bench of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“While it is possible that Congress may attempt to threaten the sitting President with an invasive request after leaving office, every President takes office knowing that he will be subject to the same laws as all other citizens upon leaving office. This is a feature of our democratic republic, not a bug,” Judge David Sentelle wrote in the majority opinion.

The opinion dismisses Trump’s argument that the committee’s request for his tax return “imposes too great a burden” on Trump because his tax returns would then be at risk of being made public.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 9, 2022 20:19:56 GMT LFC said:

Yeah, this doesn't look like it's winding down anytime soon.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee can access former President Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service.

The 3-0 ruling from the federal appeals court rejected Trump’s previous appeal of a lower court’s ruling that also green lit the committee’s access to the former president’s tax returns. Since 2019, Trump has argued against releasing his tax returns to congressional investigators in court.

Trump, however, can still appeal the latest ruling, either to the Supreme Court or to the full bench of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“While it is possible that Congress may attempt to threaten the sitting President with an invasive request after leaving office, every President takes office knowing that he will be subject to the same laws as all other citizens upon leaving office. This is a feature of our democratic republic, not a bug,” Judge David Sentelle wrote in the majority opinion.

The opinion dismisses Trump’s argument that the committee’s request for his tax return “imposes too great a burden” on Trump because his tax returns would then be at risk of being made public.

When you put yourself in the public eye as Trump has sought to do since forever, you run the risk that everything you do or file will become public.  But he's too important and famous to have to think about that.

[LFC]

TPM did Five Points On What We Know About the Missing Jan. 6 Texts. I knew about most of it but it turns out the DHS Inspector General is a real piece of work with investigations looking back years. This guy needs to be investigated, fired, and potentially prosecuted.

4  A key figure has multiple investigations against him.

On July 28, the Washington Post revealed that [DHS Inspector General Joseph] Cuffari had also stayed mum about the fact that text messages between former DHS chief Chad Wolf and former acting DHS deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli were lost.

He’d been notified by the DHS’s management division in February 2022 and considered publishing a six-page alert about the issue, but ultimately decided against it.

This isn’t Cuffari’s first time around a scandal: An investigation from the Project on Government Oversight alleged that the federal watchdog suppressed complaints of sexual harassment or misconduct from over 10,000 DHS employees. The complaints came via a survey conducted within the agency.

He was also the subject of an investigation looking into his time in the Justice Department’s Arizona field office: A 2013 report acquired by the Washington Post revealed that Cuffari was investigated for failing to inform his supervisors about his testimony in a federal prisoner’s lawsuit, as well as referring his friends’ law firms to the prisoner’s family — all of which, a DOJ IG review found, ran afoul of federal ethics rules.

Cuffari is currently being investigated by the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency for whether he had authorized an investigation by law firm WilmerHale “in ‘retaliation’ for unspecified protected activity of unspecified persons,” he wrote in a June 4, 2021 letter to Congress first published by the Project on Government Oversight. Cuffari denied involvement.

[jackd]

Looks like it's one thing Trump isn't responsible for.

[LFC]

Just get rid of this crook already.

The unfolding saga of the missing January 6 texts has led the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to issue letters laying into several agency heads over how this could have happened.

On Wednesday, Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) sent four letters to top agency officials demanding more details on how the Secret Service went about deleting Trump administration text messages.

The most pointed was targeted at Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, who has attracted particular scrutiny since it emerged that he waited months to alert Congress about the missing texts.

Senator Peters requests in the letter that the inspector general “clarify troubling allegations” that “contradict” the information that Cuffari had originally given Congress.

On July 13, Cuffari sent House and Senate committee chairpeople, including Senator Peters, a letter admitting that the Secret Service had erased text messages “after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS.” He also blamed an internal legal review for the hold-up in alerting Congress.

However, the Project on Government Oversight reported last month that the Secret Service confirmed to Cuffari’s office that the texts were lost back in February.

Peters accused Cuffari or his leadership team of taking steps “that appear to be in direct conflict with necessary efforts to identify any wrongdoing and recover missing information” related to the Capitol riot.

He also pointed out that Cuffari’s letter didn’t disclose that messages from former high-ranking DHS officials, including former DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and former Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, had also been deleted after Jan. 6.

“These are serious allegations and diverge from the information that you previously provided me and my team,” the senator wrote.

As a result, Senator Peters is requesting that the inspector general share “a complete accounting of actions planned and taken by” his office to clear up any inconsistencies in his report. Peters demanded that he confirm the date when his office first learned that the texts were deleted, detail attempts to preserve the text messages or retrieve them, and explain whether he alerted DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the texts were deleted, as, Peters notes, is “required under the Inspector General Act of 1978.”

The senator also addressed letters requesting information to Mayorkas, USSS Director James Murray, and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

The Defense Department similarly wiped the phone records of former high-ranking officials from that time period, CNN reported last week, including those of former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and former Chief of Staff Kash Patel.

[LFC]

This guy needs to be relieved of his duties immediately.

Top congressional Democrats on Tuesday accused the Department of Homeland Security’s Trump-appointed inspector general of stonewalling their efforts at accountability, and revealed a letter, sent last week, in which he refused to cooperate with their demands.

In a scathing response, the chairs of the House Oversight Committee and Homeland Security Committee again demanded Inspector General Joseph Cuffari recuse himself, and that he produce documents and testimony detailing why his department erased text messages in the days after January 6.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who oversee the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees, demanded to know why Cuffari hadn’t alerted Congress more quickly, and suggested he may have been intentionally withholding the information.

Congressional Democrats have since called for Cuffari to recuse himself from the investigation.

But in a letter replying to Maloney and Thompson made public Tuesday, he rejected those calls, and refused to make his staff available for testimony.

His response also addressed letters they sent him in July and August.

[LFC]

This is inexcusable. Garland was clearly the wrong pick for the job if he needs that much time to decide he should investigate a literal insurrection against America. BTW the fake elector scheme was reported by at least Jan 10, 2022, five months before the DOJ started to move. Five ... months.

Better Late Than Never?

As the laggardly Justice Department played catchup to the Jan. 6 committee probe, a federal grand jury back in May subpoenaed the National Archives for all the records it had turned over to the House committee in its parallel investigation. The NYT has the subpoena:

It was signed by Thomas P. Windom, the federal prosecutor who has been leading the Justice Department’s wide-ranging inquiry into what part Mr. Trump and his allies may have played in various schemes to maintain power after the former president’s defeat in the 2020 election — chief among them a plan to submit fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

For the math-impaired, May is 16(!) months after the Jan. 6 attack, and more than two years after Trump’s conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election was hatched.

[LFC]

Shorter Peter Navarro: "WAAAAAHHHHH!!!" As all good Germans Republicans, they're always the victims.

Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday accused the Justice Department of demonstrating a “selective animus” towards him as he asked a federal judge to dismiss the criminal contempt of Congress case against him.

Nazvarro was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 Select Committee’s subpoena.

Navarro made the dismissal request in a motion filed late Wednesday evening. In the filing, Navarro characterized the charges as a political move by the DOJ, arguing that Justice Department policy says that presidential advisers are shielded from congressional testimony, even after the President leaves office.

“A prosecution for Contempt of Congress following a legitimate assertion of Executive Privilege precluding Dr. Navarro’s appearance before the Select Committee, the prosecution of Dr. Navarro for contempt of Congress necessarily violates the doctrine of Separation of Powers and is unconstitutional,” the filing said.

Navarro goes on to reiterate grievances that have been repeatedly raised by Trumpworld figures, arguing the makeup of the Jan. 6 Select Committee — with just two Republicans — is illegitimate. That, of course, ignores the fact that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) ensured that the committee wouldn’t be evenly split when he pulled his nominees from consideration.

Navarro then argues that the DOJ showed a “selective animus” towards him, saying the government handled his arrest “very differently from other cases.” The filing notes that a day after a federal grand jury in D.C. returned its indictment against him, FBI agents arrested Navarro as he boarded a flight to Tennessee at Reagan National Airport.

“The Government’s refusal to allow Dr. Navarro to self-report to court after being charged with two non-violent misdemeanors is indeed unusual and demonstrates a selective animus towards him by the Government officials responsible for the decisions made in this case,” the filing said. The DOJ argued against those allegations earlier this week.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments on Navarro’s motion next month.

[goldenvalley]

So one dude got 10 years...I guess he thought he could brazen it out.

A former New York City police officer and Marine Corps veteran, who swung a flagpole at police before tackling one officer and yanking his gas mask off during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday, the longest sentence handed down so far among the more than 860 people charged in the insurrection.

Thomas Webster, 56, of Goshen, N.Y., was the first riot defendant facing the felony charge of assaulting an officer to try his luck with a jury. Twelve others have pleaded guilty to a similar charge. Webster took the witness stand at his trial and testified that he was acting in self-defense, saying D.C. police officer Noah Rathbun had instigated the fight.

Video showed Webster yelling at police on the Lower West Plaza of the Capitol, as officers struggled to maintain a perimeter outside the building. Rathbun then pushed Webster in the face — Rathbun testified his hand slipped off Webster’s shoulder — before Webster swung and smashed a Marine Corps flagpole on a bike rack and then tackled Rathbun. Webster pulled the officer’s gas mask off, causing Rathbun to begin choking on tear gas, the officer testified.

The jury took three hours before finding Webster guilty in May of the assault and four other felony charges.

[LFC]

Oh, gee. Fascist wannabe Newt Gingrich was in on The Big Lie too. What a shock.

The House Jan. 6 Committee announced on Thursday that it had sent a letter to former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich requesting info about his role in advising Trump’s team as it pushed the Big Lie — up to, and even after, the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In the committee’s letter to Gingrich, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) writes that the committee has obtained emails between Gingrich and senior Trump advisors — including Jared Kushner and Jason Miller — in which Gingrich gave advice on advertising campaigns pushing the lie that the election had been stolen from Trump.

The ads, the letter says, were intended to air in the run-up to Dec. 14, 2020, the day electors from each state would meet to make the outcome of the election official.

“These advertising efforts were not designed to encourage voting for a particular candidate,” Thompson writes. “Instead, these efforts attempted to cast doubt on the outcome of the election after voting had already taken place. They encouraged members of the public to contact their state officials and pressure them to challenge and overturn the results of the election.”

As it has with current members of Congress, the committee requested Gingrich’s cooperation, stopping short of issuing a subpoena.

[pnwguy]

Sept 2, 2022 15:50:23 GMT LFC said:

Oh, gee. Fascist wannabe Newt Gingrich was in on The Big Lie too. What a shock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM_A4Skusro

[LFC]

'Bout f***in' time.

House Jan. 6 Committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) suggested on Wednesday that the panel’s made some major progress on obtaining key communication records from the Secret Service.

Lofgren told MSNBC that the Secret Service has handed over a “large volume” of “very pertinent” material in response to the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena since the panel’s last hearing in July.

“There’s texts, there’s emails, there’s radio traffic, there’s all kinds of information,” Lofgren said

“There is now a very steady flow of data coming in to the committee, and it’s a huge amount,” she added.

The California Democrat wouldn’t offer specifics on the new information the committee uncovered in the documents.

However, Lofgren hinted at having “concerns” about the new material contradicting some of the testimony the committee has received.

Thompson also told reporters on Wednesday that the committee now has “significant” tranches of Secret Service records in its arsenal, per the Hill.

“It’s a combination of a number of text messages, radio traffic, that kind of thing,” he said. “Just thousands of exhibits.”

The committee chair also reported that the newly received material included Secret Service agents’ texts on Jan. 5 and 6, but he wasn’t sure whether any of those texts were the ones that went missing.

[LFC]

The committee has proposed a set of reforms to prevent election theft. Expect the Republicans to be against it, if not right out of the gate then when an actual bill is produced and they refuse to support it over some niggling thing they blow up into a crisis. There's no way in hell they're giving up on one of their primary election strategies.

The House Jan. 6 Committee on Sunday outlined its proposed reforms to the Electoral Count Act (ECA) to stop ex-President Donald Trump or anyone else from trying to overturn an election.

Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the panel will officially unveil its proposal this week that would “protect the rule of law and ensure that future efforts to attack the integrity of presidential elections can’t succeed.”

Then Cheney and Lofgren laid out the “four fundamental principles” of the committee’s proposed changes to the ECA.

The first principle strikes right at the heart of Trump’s election steal scheme: A reform that solidifies the vice president’s role in counting states’ electoral votes as purely ministerial, not one that has the power to hijack the process — which Trump, of course, tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to do.

Secondly, Cheney and Lofgren wrote, objections during Congress’ electoral count would be limited to “explicit constitutional requirements for candidate and elector eligibility.” Additionally, the threshold to be able to challenge the count would be raised to one-third of the lawmakers in each chamber.

The committee’s third proposed reform aims to address a situation in which a governor or another state-level official tries to withhold election results from Congress. If the governor or official does so, presidential candidates “should be able to sue in federal court to ensure that Congress receives the state’s lawful certificate.”

That change is a clear response to election-denying nominees for governor and secretary of state, such as Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who would have the power to meddle in the 2024 elections and beyond if they win.

Finally, the ECA needs to be reformed to “make clear” that state lawmakers can’t retroactively change the rules of an election after the fact in order to change the outcome, Cheney and Lofgren wrote.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 19, 2022 17:19:37 GMT LFC said:

The committee has proposed a set of reforms to prevent election theft. Expect the Republicans to be against it, if not right out of the gate then when an actual bill is produced and they refuse to support it over some niggling thing they blow up into a crisis. There's no way in hell they're giving up on one of their primary election strategies.

The House Jan. 6 Committee on Sunday outlined its proposed reforms to the Electoral Count Act (ECA) to stop ex-President Donald Trump or anyone else from trying to overturn an election.

Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the panel will officially unveil its proposal this week that would “protect the rule of law and ensure that future efforts to attack the integrity of presidential elections can’t succeed.”

Then Cheney and Lofgren laid out the “four fundamental principles” of the committee’s proposed changes to the ECA.

The first principle strikes right at the heart of Trump’s election steal scheme: A reform that solidifies the vice president’s role in counting states’ electoral votes as purely ministerial, not one that has the power to hijack the process — which Trump, of course, tried to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to do.

Secondly, Cheney and Lofgren wrote, objections during Congress’ electoral count would be limited to “explicit constitutional requirements for candidate and elector eligibility.” Additionally, the threshold to be able to challenge the count would be raised to one-third of the lawmakers in each chamber.

The committee’s third proposed reform aims to address a situation in which a governor or another state-level official tries to withhold election results from Congress. If the governor or official does so, presidential candidates “should be able to sue in federal court to ensure that Congress receives the state’s lawful certificate.”

That change is a clear response to election-denying nominees for governor and secretary of state, such as Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who would have the power to meddle in the 2024 elections and beyond if they win.

Finally, the ECA needs to be reformed to “make clear” that state lawmakers can’t retroactively change the rules of an election after the fact in order to change the outcome, Cheney and Lofgren wrote.

Well the proposal is much too reasonable.

[pnwguy]

We all know that if the Republican members of Congress had to approve One Person One Vote, this would be considered radical, socialist, the destruction of the family, anti-Christian, and a danger to all of humanity.

[LFC]

The next hearing is scheduled for Sep. 28.

Next Jan. 6 Panel Hearing To Be Held Next Week

House Jan. 6 Committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) announced yesterday that the panel’s next hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 28 at 1 p.m. ET.

• It’ll be the committee’s last hearing before it releases its report at the end of the year.

• Thompson wouldn’t say what the subject of the hearing will be. However, the Democrat said the hearing will be an opportunity for the panel to use some of the “substantial footage” and “significant witness testimony” that hasn’t been revealed yet.

What's that you say, Republicans? It's too political this close to an election (*cough* Clinton *cough, cough)? So sad. Too bad. Go f*** yourselves.

[LFC]

There are anonymous DHS staffers who want Joseph Cuffari, the clearly corrupt and incompetent IG, to get the boot. Another one of Trump's "best people."

On Friday morning, an anonymous group of staffers at the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog called for President Joe Biden to fire their boss, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari.

“[T]he highest priorities of an inspector general are integrity and independence,” the staffers wrote in a letter published by the Project of Government Oversight (POGO). “IG Cuffari and his inner circle of senior leaders have fallen short in these areas time and time again.”

The letter was signed by “Concerned DHS OIG employees representing every program office at every grade level (for fear of retaliation, we cannot identify ourselves).”

TPM gives us a flashback.

Cuffari has gotten wrapped up in quite a few scandals since he was appointed to the role by former President Donald Trump in 2019. Most recently, he’s been embroiled in an ongoing scandal related to the attack on the Capitol complex on January 6th. After a former White House aide testified before the House select committee investigating the attack that Trump had had an altercation with the Secret Service on Jan. 6, Congress renewed its year-old inquiry for written correspondence from employees across several agencies, including the DHS.

They later found out that almost all of their text messages were deleted — and that Cuffari had known for months, but had not made the fact public.

There were other controversies. Earlier this year, Cuffari garnered unfavorable attention when watchdog groups revealed that he had not published a federal watchdog report finding that over 10,000 DHS employees said they’d experienced sexual harassment or misconduct. After the unpublished reports were revealed, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the drafts “underscore the need for immediate action.”

Cuffari also became the target of an investigation by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) after being accused of retaliating against a former top agency official.

[LFC]

Just another Republican fascist trying to cover up his party's involvement in an attempted coup.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) launched a court battle on Sunday to quash the House Jan. 6 Committee’s subpoena, which seeks his testimony on ex-President Donald Trump’s phone call to Vos pushing the state lawmaker to somehow decertify his state’s 2020 election results.

Vos filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin seeking an injunction against the subpoena, which demanded that he appear for a deposition with the committee on Monday at 10 a.m. ET.

The Wisconsin Republican leader claimed in the lawsuit that the subpoena imposed an “undue burden” on him because he received it on Saturday, arguing that giving him “less than 48 hours to comply with the subpoena is completely unnecessary and unreasonable.”

Vos accused the committee of deliberately timing his requested deposition to come before the panel holds its next public hearing on Wednesday.

“For reasons only known to the Committee, it believes Speaker Vos’ deposition will generate interest for its self-described made-for-TV production,” the lawsuit stated.

Vos also argued that his conversation with Trump was “not pertinent” to the committee’s investigation.

[LFC]

The stank rising up off of IG Joseph Cuffari continues to ripen even more.

Senior leadership at the Secret Service confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents involved in the agency’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and handed them over to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, according to two sources with knowledge of the action.

The agency handed over the phones “shortly after” a July 19 letter was sent by Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office around the time he launched a criminal probe into the Secret Service’s missing text messages from Jan. 6, the sources said.

It is unclear what, if any, information the Office of Inspector General has been able to obtain from the cellphones.

So he had the phones. Being agency phones he had access to their contents. He was able to question the agents. And all we have is "Oops! I dunno' what happened!"? Fire his ass for gross incompetence and then get him under investigation ASAP. This guy is nothing more than a typical Trumpublican crook.

[goldenvalley]

The 1/6 Select Committee won't hold a hearing on Wednesday.  The hurricane hitting Florida is the reason.  No rescheduled date was announced.