Did the Secret Service lose relevant texts?

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2022

The Post's gorilla dust: Did the Secret Service lose / purge / delete text messages which would be relevant to the January 6 committee's probe of the Capitol riot?

This was the day we were supposed to find out. We've just read the Washington Post's first report on what has been learned, and we don't have the slightest idea what the Post's report is reporting.

Perhaps a clearer account will emerge. For now, we're thoroughly stumped. Here are some murky particulars in the report, as presented by Leonnig and Sacchetti:

We'll start with some basic background. Midway through their new report, the reporters describe what the Secret Service said last week:

LEONNIG AND SACCHETTI (7/19/22): Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has said that the agency did not maliciously delete text messages and that the Secret Service had lost some data because of a previously planned agencywide replacement of staff telephones. The replacement began a month before the Office of Inspector General made his request, he said last week.

Guglielmi acknowledged that some data on the phones had been lost in the changeover but emphasized that “none of the texts” the OIG was seeking were missing.

According to Guglielmi's statement last week, the Secret Service did lose some data during the agency-wide replacement of telephones. However, he also said that none of the material that was missing was relevant to the January 6 probe.

(That's the type of material the Inspector General has been seeking.)

No relevant messages were lost. That was the agency's claim last week. Is the agency still making that claim today?

We've read the Post's report with care, and we can't exactly tell you. Starting with its headline, the Post's report may seem to make it sound that way. But after reading the report with care, we aren't exactly sure. 

More specifically:

Did agents working with Trump and Pence lose any text messages from the relevant dates? Presumably, that's the relevant question—and we can't see that the question has been answered in the Post's report. A fair amount of gorilla dust is perhaps creating "a haze which makes clear vision impossible," if we may quote the later Wittgenstein in a different context.

You can give it a try yourself. Warning! We advise you to read the Post's report with care.

Later, the facts may become more clear. For now, despite the Post's apparent best efforts, we remain unsure. So it goes in this, the most rational of all possible worlds.

Did relevant agents lose any texts? Even now, on Judgment Day, we still have no idea.

14 comments:


  1. "We've just read the Washington Post's first report on what has been learned, and we don't have the slightest idea what the Post's report is reporting."

    We'd guess that the dembot publication is reporting that Enemies of The People are everywhere. Under every bed.

    Secret Service? Definitely. Totally infiltrated. Also, the military, we hear.

    Stay alert, dear Bob, stay alert!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for always giving the deep state the benefit of the doubt, Mao.
      I’m sure they appreciate it.

      Delete
    2. Wikileaks, if you’re listening…

      Delete
    3. https://www.theonion.com/off-duty-officer-instinctively-reaches-to-turn-off-body-1848997672

      Delete
  2. Newspapers are not required to report all the things that didn’t happen. Somerby can be patient.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Would you have thought it was even allowed
    under the regulations of the Agency that
    an agent take a job with the people he
    had previously been assigned to
    protect? I wouldn’t have.
    Bob is correct, there is a lot of smoke
    blowing around this thing. In recent
    years we have seen examples of
    workers in various law enforcement
    agencies failing to leave their
    politics at home. Some of these have
    been on the left. Trump obviously
    hired a hack to head the DOJ and
    go after his political enemies.
    Bob has never displayed any
    objection to this scuzzy outrage.
    So, just because there IS smoke
    doesn’t mean there ISN’T fire.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somerby thinks the smoke is being blown by reporters, not the agencies involved. He thinks the reports should be omniscient and clairvoyant, so that they can answer all questions, even the ones in Somerby's mind alone, or they shouldn't write anything at all on a topic. It is an unreasonable demand.

      Delete
  4. Who cares if they deleted texts? No one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "No one".
      Isn't that the name of Rationalist's friend, the Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white supremacy?
      I think they're the same person.

      Delete
    2. 10:10: Somerby cares apparently. This is his second post about it in as many days.

      Delete
    3. The arrogant right winger always claims nobody doesn’t agree with him. It’s a bully tactic, often effective.

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  5. About half the right wing just claimed a ten year old who got raped was lying…since this ugly journalistic malpractice wasn’t on “our side” will Bob even mention it?

    ReplyDelete