Secret Service Finds 1 Text. 'I Smell a Rat,' Raskin Says

Jan. 6 committee member finds agency's loss of messages an odd coincidence
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 20, 2022 6:25 PM CDT
After a Search, Secret Service Turns Over a Single Text
Vice Chair Liz Cheney and Rep. Jamie Raskin listen during a hearing at the Capitol on July 12.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

A subpoena for Secret Service text messages issued by the House committee investigating the Capitol attack has yielded precisely one transmission. The communication turned over was a request for help sent Jan. 6 by Steven Sund, a Capitol police officer at the time. "That's all that we have," said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, the Hill reports. The agency had told the committee it no longer has the Jan. 5-6 texts it requested. A spokesman assured the committee members that the Secret Service isn't "holding out" on them. Another committee member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, said Wednesday that he finds the agency's story hard to believe.

"I smell a rat," Raskin said. "That seems like an awfully strange coincidence for those text messages to be banished into oblivion on two days where there was also the most violent insurrection against the union in our history, after the Civil War." Assistant Director Ronald Rowe wrote to the committee that the agency is still looking for texts, per CNN. "I got a lot of questions," Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar said. The Secret Service also told the committee that in its hurry to turn over other documents last week, it had neglected to make any redactions. The agency asked that the committee check before making any of that information public. (More Jan. 6 hearings stories.)

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