The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog agency requested all of the Secret Service’s text messages sent around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, only to withdraw the request five months later, according to an email obtained by House committees. On July 27, 2021, DHS Inspector General Thomas Kait emailed senior DHS official Jim Crumpacker to say: “Jim, please use this email as a reference to our conversation where I said we no longer request phone records and text messages from the [Secret Service] relating to the events of January 6th.” The communication was obtained by the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Oversight Committee. On Monday, the chairs of the committees wrote to the DHS inspector general’s office noting that in December 2021, five months after withdrawing the request for texts, Kait once again asked for the messages.
