DHS inspector general confirms he deletes text messages from government phone

The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that he routinely deletes text messages from his government phone — a possible violation of government record keeping laws.

Inspector General Joseph Cuffari — who has remained under fire for failing to inform Congress in a more timely manner that Secret Service text messages related to Jan. 6 were lost — was asked Tuesday about his own record preservation practices.

Cuffari answered “yes” when Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) asked him during an appearance before the House Oversight Committee if he deletes text messages from his phone.

“It’s my normal practice to delete text messages,” Cuffari said, answering “correct” when Ivey asked if he does this on an ongoing basis.

The two then sparred over whether those phone records should be retained.

“I don’t use my government cellphone to conduct official business,” Cuffari said, though he pushed back when Ivey asked if the messages he deleted were related to personal business.

“I did not consider those to be federal records and therefore I deleted them,” Cuffari said. “It’s a clearly defined statute that places requirements on what a federal record actually is.”

Deleting the text messages could violate both DHS policy as well as federal records laws.

The Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group that has called for Cuffari to be fired, said a 2014 DHS policy requires employees to preserve text messages on their government-issued phones.

Cuffari appeared before the panel to discuss a report about staffing levels and agent morale at the border.

But the committee’s Democrats zeroed in on a litany of complaints about Cuffari, which include the Secret Service Jan. 6 episode, as well as claims he suppressed a report about sexual harassment at DHS. 

Cuffari is under investigation by the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) the top Democrat on the panel who previously served on the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, asked Cuffari why he didn’t alert Congress more quickly to the absence of Secret Service messages, which the agency said were lost in a software transition.

There are multiple provisions in the Inspectors General Act that require notifying agency heads or Congress about “particularly serious or flagrant problems,” in some cases within seven days.

“What I don’t understand is your statutory duty to immediately inform Congress about this flagrant abuse,” Raskin said.

“I mean, we’re talking about the worst violent insurrection against Congress in the history of the United States. And the Secret Service is not cooperating with your request for information. Why did you not think that you needed to immediately alert Congress to that fact?”

Cuffari said he was having effective conversations with DHS leadership to retrieve the records.

“I was working with senior leadership and the Department of Homeland Security to get the records we were lawfully entitled to receive,” he said.

But Cuffari also said he signed off on a reference in a semi-annual report that would have advertised the Inspector General Office’s difficulty in obtaining the messages.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) chastised Democrats for failing to stick with the topic of Cuffari’s report.

“I think what’s going on in the border is the biggest crisis this country has to deal with today,” Grothman said.

“I realize Dr. Cuffari was originally appointed by Donald Trump, and some people are never going to get over that. But our focus today should be on … the moral of the border patrol,” he said.