New reporting from The Intercept has found that the Secret Service erased text messages sent before and during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The missing messages could shed light on the agency’s attempt to remove Vice President Mike Pence from the Capitol — which would have prevented him from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Now, the sudden disappearance of text messages is raising new questions about what the Secret Service did that day and what, if anything, they have to hide.
Previous investigations by The Intercept have uncovered troubling connections between white supremacist organizations and U.S. law enforcement, and any evidence that the Secret Service had been compromised would shake the agency to its core.
The Intercept was first to break this major scoop, and we’re committed to uncovering the whole truth. Our team is just getting started on this crucial story.
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Pence’s refusal to follow the instructions of the Secret Service may have been one of the most pivotal moments of the January 6 insurrection.
As one congressional official told an Intercept reporter, “People need to understand that if Pence had listened to the Secret Service and fled the Capitol, this could have turned out a whole lot worse. It could’ve been a successful coup, not just an attempted one.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 committee, called Pence’s terse refusal to Secret Service agents — “I’m not getting in the car” — the “six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.”
That’s why it’s so critical to get to the bottom of what the Secret Service did that day and what the deleted text messages showed.
This kind of adversarial investigative reporting requires countless hours of developing sources and tracking down leads. It’s not cheap or easy.
