Opinion: The Secret Service’s actions on text messages don’t pass the smell test

It has been less than a week since Joseph Cuffari, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, shared that the US Secret Service had deleted key text messages from around the time of rioters’ attack on the US Capitol. The disclosure, in a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees, said the messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, “were erased as part of a device-replacement program,” adding they were deleted after the inspector general had requested records of Secret Service electronic communications as part of a review of events leading up to the January 6 insurrection.