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    Secret Service told to begin an inquiry into erased January 6 text messages

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    Secret Service told to begin an inquiry into erased January 6 text messagesThe National Archives asked the agency to report in a month on whether messages were ‘improperly deleted’ The US National Archives has asked the Secret Service to conduct an internal investigation over “erased” text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to the agency’s records management officer on Tuesday.Primetime January 6 hearing to go ahead despite chairman’s positive Covid testRead moreThe request marks the latest escalation of the matter after the watchdog for the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, notified Congress he had sought the texts only to be told they no longer existed.In the letter sent to the Secret Service records officer, reviewed by the Guardian, the National Archives requested the agency launch an internal review and report within 30 calendar days if it finds any texts were “improperly deleted”.The letter noted that the Secret Service was required to produce a report by law, and that it must report its findings regardless of whether the erased texts were relevant to the inspector general’s inquiry or the House January 6 investigation.“This report must include a complete description of the records affected,” the National Archives said, “a statement of the exact circumstances surrounding the deletion of messages [and] all agency actions taken to salvage, retrieve, or reconstruct the records.”The value of asking the Secret Service to conduct an investigation into itself about messages its own personnel appear to have deleted was not immediately clear, given the agency, the inspector general said, has already slow-walked his internal review.In a statement, a Secret Service spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said the agency “respects and supports the important role of the National Archives and Records Administration in ensuring preservation of government records. They will have our full cooperation in this review.”The circumstances surrounding the erasure of the Secret Service texts have become central for the January 6 committee as it investigates how agents planned to move Donald Trump and Mike Pence as the violence unfolded.The controversy over the erased texts erupted last week after the letter from the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, became public, and the committee went into overdrive to assess the impact on its investigation.In the letter, the inspector general said certain Secret Service texts from 5 and 6 January 2021 were erased amid a “device replacement program” even after he requested the messages for his internal inquiry.The Secret Service has disputed that, saying in a statement that data on some phones were lost as part of a pre-planned “system migration” in January 2021, and that Cuffari’s initial request for communications came weeks later, in late February.But the committee has questioned the Secret Service’s emphasis on that date, according to sources close to the inquiry, noting that the first request for Secret Service communications came from Congress, just 10 days after the Capitol attack.Bennie Thompson, chair of the committee, met the staff director, David Buckley, and deputy director, Kristen Amerling, after he received Cuffari’s letter, and the full panel promptly asked for a briefing on the matter.At the briefing, the Guardian first reported, Cuffari told the committee the Secret Service’s story about how the texts disappeared kept shifting. At one point it was because of a software upgrade. At another it was because devices were swapped out.Hours after the briefing, the committee issued a subpoena for any texts that had not been erased, as well as any after-action reports the agency might have conducted into its response to January 6.Regardless of how the messages were lost from individual devices, the Secret Service, like any other executive branch agency, is supposed to back up data and messages so government records are preserved.But the Secret Service has often flouted that rule, according to a source familiar with the matter, and critical communications have in the past repeatedly gone missing as soon as the Secret Service has become the subject of oversight or internal investigations.At the briefing to the committee last week, the Guardian also reported, Cuffari discussed the feasibility of using forensic tools to reconstruct the missing texts, something the justice department has previously been able to do as recently as 2018.TopicsUS Capitol attackSecret ServiceNational ArchivesJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      National Archives reportedly asks DoJ to investigate Trump document handling

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      National Archives reportedly asks DoJ to investigate Trump document handlingRequest follows reports of Trump tearing up documents and sending boxes of files to Mar-a-Lago property The National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) has asked the justice department to investigate whether the former US president Donald Trump violated federal law in the handling of documents, the Washington Post has reported. The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the report.The referral followed several Washington Post stories chronicling how Trump dealt with documents, including tearing them up. In one report, confirmed by the archives, the agency arranged the transport of 15 boxes of documents from the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida after Trump’s representatives discovered them and notified the archives.The Washington Post says the referral is asking the justice department to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all presidential records of an administration be turned over to the National Archives when a president leaves office.The archives did not return multiple messages seeking comment. The justice department declined to comment. In a statement, Trump said: “Following collaborative and respectful discussions, the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) arranged for the transport of boxes that contained presidential records in compliance with the Presidential Records Act” from Mar-a-Lago that will one day become part of the Donald J Trump presidential library.The media’s “characterisation of my relationship with Nara is fake news. It was exactly the opposite. It was a great honour to work with Nara to help formally preserve the Trump legacy,” said Trump.The archive acknowledged this week that Trump representatives had been cooperating with Nara and had located records “that had not been transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration”. Nara arranged for them to be transported to Washington. “Nara officials did not visit or raid the Mar-a-Lago property,” the agency said.Nara said the former president’s representatives are continuing to search for additional records that belong to the archives.In a separate statement, David S Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said: “Whether through the creation of adequate and proper documentation, sound records management practices, the preservation of records, or the timely transfer of them to the National Archives at the end of an administration, there should be no question as to need for both diligence and vigilance. Records matter.”Supreme court rejects Trump bid to shield documents from January 6 panelRead moreThe issue of presidential records, the Trump administration and the archives has been central to the investigation by the House committee investigating the insurrection on 6 January that sought to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Trump tried to withhold White House documents in a dispute that rose to the supreme court.In an 8-1 ruling last month, the court let stand a lower court ruling that said the archives could turn over documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with 6 January from the files of the former chief of staff Mark Meadows. At the time, the House committee agreed to defer its attempt to retrieve some documents, at the request of the Biden administration.A referral for potential criminal prosecution from a federal agency or from Congress does not mean the justice department is likely to bring charges or that it will even investigate the matter.Questions about Trump’s handling of records date back to 2018, when Politico reported that Trump aides, fearing he might violate the law, routinely pieced together documents with tape because of his habit of tearing them up.TopicsDonald TrumpUS supreme courtUS justice systemNational ArchivesLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Bill Clinton fancied an Indian rather than tea with the Queen

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      Bill ClintonBill Clinton fancied an Indian rather than tea with the QueenThen US leader also turned down Chequers dinner because he wanted to ‘be a tourist’, archives show Caroline DaviesMon 19 Jul 2021 19.01 EDTLast modified on Tue 20 Jul 2021 00.09 EDTBill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen and dinner at Chequers because he wanted to “be a tourist” and try out an Indian restaurant during his first official visit to the UK with Tony Blair as prime minister, formerly classified documents reveal.Downing Street wanted to pull out all the stops for a visit seen as crucial to “establishing a good working relationship” between the new prime minister and the then US president. Buckingham Palace contacted No 10 to say “HM the Queen would be very pleased” to invite the Clintons to tea at 5pm on their brief one-day detour from summits in Paris and The Hague.But, though “very grateful for HM the Queen’s invitation”, the Clintons would “wish to decline politely”, recorded Blair’s private secretary, Philip Barton, nor was the White House “attracted to our suggestion of a dinner at Chequers”.Instead, Clinton wanted time to go shopping – “he has said that he wants to be a tourist” – and had “expressed an interest in trying Indian food”, according to a Downing Street briefing note released by the National Archives.A lot was riding on the visit, with the British and Americans agreeing it needed to “show the president and the prime minister to the wider world as young, dynamic and serious leaders”.The Americans were keen for a “fun” and “photogenic” outside event. Foreign Office suggestions – which all went nowhere – included a lunchtime jamming session “for the president (saxophone) and the prime minister (guitar) to play together briefly (with or without other musicians who might be at the lunch)”. Another was a “look in a pub (the Americans like them)”.No 10’s suggestions for a “stroll in Trafalgar Square” before visiting the Sports Cafe in Haymarket, where both men “could be shown how to play various sophisticated computer games by a group of children” were “firmly” rejected by the White House as “not serious enough”.In the event, the Clintons ended up with free time between a joint press conference and dinner. Rather than an Indian restaurant, dinner for the Blairs and Clintons was at the French restaurant Le Pont de la Tour near Tower Bridge, where the £298.86 invoice shows the two couples dined on grilled sole, halibut, wild salmon and rabbit.Ahead of the visit, there were concerns at the White House that the Clintons had recently sojourned in Barbados at a house belonging to Sir Anthony Bamford, “a well-known Conservative supporter”. There were fears “this might be misunderstood or misinterpreted in London”, the documents reveal. The White House said the president did not know Bamford at all. “But the property he owns happens to be particularly well situated from a security and other points of view.”During the 29 May 1997 visit, Clinton was to be shown around the Cabinet Room, prompting the then cabinet secretary, Robin Butler, to remind Blair’s principal private secretary, John Holmes, of the former US president Richard Nixon’s inauspicious visit to the cabinet room in 1969.As later recounted by Roy Jenkins, the chancellor at the time, as Nixon reached for milk for his coffee, he “mysteriously succeeded in picking up a crystal inkwell and pouring its contents over his hands, his papers and some part of the table”. As “horror” broke out on the British side, Sir Burke Trend – the then cabinet secretary – poured cream over his own trousers, “although it was not clear whether this was because he was so shocked or because he felt the president would feel less embarrassed if carelessness verging on slapstick appeared to be a Downing Street habit”, Jenkins later wrote. Nixon was led out to “nailbrushes and pumice stones”, which were “unavailing” and returned with hands still stained, “a real Lady Macbeth scene”, and his concentration “completely ruined”. In a handwritten note, Butler wrote: “I hope I will not be asked to emulate the sacrifice of my predecessor.”TopicsBill ClintonNational ArchivesTony BlairPolitics pastUS politicsnewsReuse this content More