DHS lawyers evaluate whether to allow Secret Service to cooperate with Jan. 6 committee
CBSN
Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security are evaluating whether or not U.S. Secret Service officials may continue to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol after the department's top watchdog directed the agency to cease looking into what happened to apparently deleted text messages from that day, three U.S. officials tell CBS News.
In a July 20 letter addressed to U.S. Secret Service Director James Murray and reviewed by CBS News, DHS Deputy Inspector General Gladys Ayala instructed the agency to "not engage in any further investigative activities," adding that the agency's efforts to interview potential witnesses or take further action "would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation."
The letter has prompted a review of U.S. Secret Service's cooperation by DHS' Office of the General Counsel, amid concerns that any voluntary appearance by Secret Service officials before oversight officials on Capitol Hill could interfere with the potential criminal probe by Joseph Cuffari, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.