Secret Service confiscated phones of 24 riot agents, hands them to IG

The Secret Service senior leadership confiscated the phones 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 from Inspector General Joseph Cuffari's office was sent by the agency around the time he launched a criminal investigation into the Secret Service's missing text messages from Jan. 6, the sources said.

It is not clear what information the Office of Inspector General has been able to obtain from the phones.

The revelation that Cuffari s office has had access to the phones since July or August raises new questions about the progress of his criminal investigation into missing text messages and what, if anything, the public may learn about communications between agents on January 6, 2021.

One source familiar with the Secret Service decision to comply with Cuffari's request said some agents were upset that their leaders were quick to confiscate the phones without their input.

The agents had little say in the matter, despite the fact that the phones belong to the agency.

Cuffari alerted Congress earlier in July that his office was unable to get text messages from agents cellphones that it sought as part of its investigation into the Secret Service response to the insurrection. The Secret Service said the texts were lost as part of a system upgrade that essentially restored the phones to factory settings.

The content of texts sent by Secret Service agents on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, attracted increased interest in June after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 House committee that former President Donald Trump had lunged at a Secret Service agent when he refused to drive Trump's car toward the Capitol during the insurrection. Trump hasn't lunged at the agent.

A spokesman for the Secret Service wouldn't say anything about the confiscated phones. A spokesman for the Inspector General's Office said the agency did not confirm the existence of or comment on criminal investigations in order to protect the integrity of our work and preserve our independence. Some of Cuffari's employees and some members of Congress have called his leadership into question. In a letter obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and released Friday, anonymous staff accused Cuffari of editing reports to remove key findings and interfering with staff efforts to gather information necessary to perform independent oversight. Cuffari, a former adviser to Republican Arizona governors Jan Brewer and Doug Ducey, was nominated by President Trump to be DHS inspector general and confirmed by the Senate in July 2019.