Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Secret Service, seeking texts from January 5-6
CBSN
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol assault has subpoenaed the U.S. Secret Service to obtain text messages from around the time of the attack, the committee said Friday night.
The subpoena comes two days after the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general told lawmakers that the Secret Service had erased text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021. In a letter sent to congressional committees, Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said his office was notified that texts were erased as part of a "device replacement program." But Cuffari told lawmakers the erasures came after he requested the messages as part of an investigation into the agency's response to the Capitol attack.
The Secret Service has denied it maliciously deleted the messages, saying instead some data was lost during a pre-planned system migration.
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.