We can’t simply assume corruption so long as incompetence remains a plausible explanation.

And incompetence is always a live theory when the Secret Service is involved.

But you don’t have to strain hard to formulate a theory that agency personnel deliberately destroyed evidence here to protect themselves and/or their boss at the time.

The inspector general for DHS sent a letter yesterday to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees to update them on a surprising development in his investigation of January 6. Note the use of italics:

Emphasizing that the texts were erased after they were requested sure sounds like the IG suspects they were erased intentionally, not during the course of some “device-replacement program” mishap, as the Secret Service claims.

Notably, though, the IG doesn’t say when he requested those texts. Was it before or after Cassidy Hutchinson testified publicly before the January 6 committee?

The Intercept was first to break the news about the missing texts and has a guess about what sort of information they might have contained:

“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence reportedly told the Secret Service detail [during the insurrection] on January 6. “If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off.” Had Pence entered the vice presidential limo, he would have been taken to a secure location where he would have been unable to certify the presidential election results, plunging the U.S. into uncharted waters…

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the January 6 committee, called Pence’s terse refusal — “I’m not getting in the car” — the “six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.”…

Tony Ornato, a Secret Service agent whom Trump made the unprecedented decision to appoint as his deputy White House Chief of Staff, reportedly informed Pence’s national security advisor, Keith Kellogg, on January 6 that agents would relocate the Vice President to Joint Base Andrews. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg reportedly told Ornato. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.” (Ornato has denied the account.)

I’ve always thought Pence’s refusal to leave the Capitol was less about fear that the Secret Service would kidnap him(!!) to prevent him from certifying the vote and more about standing up to a mob that wanted to stop him from doing the people’s business. But if there’s any hard evidence that I’m wrong, a logical place to find it would be in the agents’ communications with each other that day and the day before. Those communications have now, conveniently, gone missing.

If the texts were erased after Hutchinson’s testimony, that would open up another corrupt possibility. The most damning thing she told the committee was that Trump wanted the metal detectors turned off as people filed in before his rally on January 6. When he was told that some were carrying weapons, Hutchinson claimed, he shrugged it off on grounds that those weapons weren’t meant for him. If all of that’s true, it’s crucial evidence in a potential criminal case against Trump for incitement. His defense has been that he told the rallygoers to head to the Capitol peacefully, never dreaming that they might assault Congress. But if he knew they had weapons and didn’t want those weapons confiscated, and then went ahead and riled them up anyway, that would speak to his own violent intentions in going forward with the rally.

Text messages between Secret Service agents on the scene could corroborate Hutchinson’s testimony. E.g., “POTUS asking us to turn off the mags. How should we respond?”

Although it wasn’t ultimately important to her testimony, the now famous allegation Hutchinson made about Trump trying to grab the steering wheel of his SUV and lunging at an agent because they wouldn’t drive him to the Capitol could also be confirmed by the texts. Her source for that story was Ornato, she said. Two weeks ago CNN reported that similar rumors had circulated within the Secret Service after January 6 about some sort of incident happening inside the SUV. “Nobody said Trump assaulted him; they said he tried to lunge over the seat — for what reason, nobody had any idea,” one source told the outlet. The missing texts could confirm that reports about an SUV incident were being shared that afternoon within the agency, which may be how Ornato first came to hear about it.

And those are just the January 6 texts. The real action for prosecutors and the January 6 committee would be the texts sent on *January 5,* as those would speak to what the Secret Service and/or Trump knew would ensue the next day. Did they expect violence? Was there a plan to keep Pence away from the Capitol?

Either way, it’s convenient for figures like Ornato who are vowing to testify against Hutchinson that the hard evidence that might prove which side is telling the truth has mysteriously vanished. I repeat a point I made after her testimony: There’s no good reason to believe Ornato instead of Hutchinson and plenty of reason to believe Hutchinson instead of Ornato. Ornato went from Secret Service agent to deputy chief of staff under Trump, an unheard-of promotion, and may be in line to return to an exalted position if Trump wins a second term. As the president’s praetorian guard, the Secret Service is also expected to keep the president’s confidences. And reportedly the agents *really* liked Trump.

Put all of that together with the stinks-to-high-heaven disappearance of the agency’s texts and it’s easy to imagine the Secret Service lying to help him cover up. It’s less easy to imagine Hutchinson lying to hurt him when her reward for doing so is ruining her future in Republican politics at the age of 26 and needing a security detail to cope with the amount of death threats she’s getting.

Should we really find her less credible than … this guy?

Former President Donald Trump tried to call a member of the White House support staff who was talking to the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The support staffer was not someone who routinely communicated with the former President and was concerned about the contact, according to the sources, and informed their attorney.

The call was made after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified publicly to the committee. The White House staffer was in a position to corroborate part of what Hutchinson had said under oath, according to the sources.

It’s unclear what “support staff” means but it sounds like something in the mold of a maid or a butler rather than a political aide. Did someone who cleans up after the president maybe corroborate Hutchinson’s vivid tale of Trump throwing his food after meeting with Bill Barr in December 2020, leaving ketchup dripping down the wall? If it is a maid or butler, it becomes very hard to imagine what the purpose of a recent phone call from Trump might be apart from witness tampering.

Luckily for the big guy, it sounds like he’s already got a patsy in the form of Mark Meadows lined up. Meadows deserves it, frankly.

I’ll leave you with this from the Secret Service’s spokesman. In this case, it’s not the agency versus the media, it’s the agency versus DHS’s IG.

We take strong issue with these categorically false claims and I will be responding in detail shortly. https://t.co/81kPQxPjW1

— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) July 14, 2022