Federal watchdog probe expands to include missing Jan. 6 Secret Service texts: report

A misconduct investigation of the Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog that began almost two years ago has expanded to include missing Jan. 6 Secret Service text messages, The Washington Post reports.

The probe of Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari will include his role in the missing texts.

Investigators on Monday demanded Cuffari's records of the deleted texts, which was revealed in a federal lawsuit Cuffari filed with three others including two staffers, the report said. He filed the lawsuit jointly with his chief of staff, Kristen Fredricks, his general counsel, James Read, and Joseph Gangloff, a former government official, the report said.

Cuffari, a Trump appointee, last year shut down an investigation of the missing Secret Service messages during the House’s insurrection probe.

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The Post’s Lisa Rein reports that “Democratic lawmakers have previously sought answers from Cuffari about when he learned of the missing texts, information that could shed light on what happened on Jan. 6 and during the days leading up to the attack, and why he did not more aggressively try to recover them.”

Cuffari has denied wrongdoing and said he’s gotten pushback for attempts to restore order to an office he inherited that he described as dysfunctional.

Rein reports “The probe has paralyzed the inspector general’s office, alienated Cuffari from the watchdog community and led to calls for President Biden to fire him. The president has signaled that he intends to stay out of the process until the panel from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) completes its work. When a federal watchdog is accused of misconduct and the organization decides that it warrants attention, another inspector general is assigned to investigate, under a system set up by Congress.”