Democratic lawmakers seek Homeland Security watchdog's resignation

Washington - Democratic lawmakers on Thursday called on the Department of Homeland Security's chief watchdog to resign after he admitted this week to deleting text messages from his government-issued iPhone.

In a letter, representatives Glenn F. Ivey (D-Md.) and Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said federal law requires officials to preserve texts and other official documents and DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari should have known that rule as the official in charge of auditing Homeland Security.

"You are unfit to lead an agency responsible for preventing and detecting fraud and abuse in government programs and operations," the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Cuffari, calling on him to "resign immediately."

Ivey said in an interview that his exchange with Cuffari at a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing Tuesday marked the end of his patience with the inspector general.

During the hearing, Ivey asked Cuffari if he had deleted his government text messages.

Cuffari said it was his normal practice to delete messages he didn't think he was required to save. He did not provide dates or say what was in the messages.

"I did not consider those to be federal records and therefore I deleted them," he said.

Cuffari's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter from the lawmakers.

The letter calling for Cuffari to resign comes nearly a year after Democratic lawmakers accused him of bungling the probe into the Secret Service's missing text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, one of the most significant probes in U.S. history.

Thompson led the special House committee that investigated the attack by supporters of former president Donald Trump attempting to overturn the presidential elections.

Cuffari stunned lawmakers in July 2022 with a letter informing them that the Secret Service had erased their phone text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, messages that might have provided insight into the actions of the president and other officials they protect. Cuffari said the agency deleted the messages after he'd asked for them, and that it was part of a pattern of DHS resisting his inquiries. The Secret Service said it had done nothing nefarious and had wiped the messages as part of a planned upgrade of its phones.

Days later, lawmakers discovered that Cuffari's office had known about the missing texts for months and failed to notify them, and The Post reported that his office scrapped his own agency's efforts to recover the texts. Democrats demanded that Cuffari recuse himself from the Secret Service probe, allow them to interview his staff and share investigative records. He declined.

Thompson, who is also the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, and other Democrats had stopped short of calling for his resignation, until Cuffari's testimony this week.

Cuffari has also faced allegations that he delayed or censored reports on sex and domestic abuse at DHS and other allegations.

"There's just been a lot that appears to have been mishandled over the years," Ivey said in a phone interview. "I just think this was the last straw."

The Federal Records Act requires federal agencies to preserve government records for historical purposes and for possible investigations. It is a crime, punishable by fines and prison time, to willfully destroy the records.

The National Archives and Records Administration, which works with agencies to determine which records should be preserved, said in an email to The Post that it is "inquiring further with DHS on this matter."

The lawmakers said Cuffari's history of deleting texts came to light after the Project On Government Oversight filed a lawsuit last year seeking text messages and other records related to alleged revisions of an inspector general report on sexual misconduct and harassment inside DHS. POGO, a nonpartisan organization, has called on President Biden to fire Cuffari.

Trump fired several inspectors general, raising concerns that he was purging agencies of independent watchdogs investigating his political appointees, and Biden has said he did not want to act in a similar fashion.

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, known as CIGIE, has been investigating Cuffari during the past two years.

Cuffari, who has been on the job since his Senate confirmation in July 2019, and other staff members filed a lawsuit in April to block that investigation, saying he is a career civil servant who has been bombarded with meritless complaints as he has tried to overhaul a troubled office.

Republicans defended Cuffari this week, accusing Democrats of hijacking a committee hearing that was supposed to focus on how DHS is struggling with staffing issues amid an influx of migrants on the southern border.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) urged Democrats during the hearing to focus on the hiring issue and noted that Cuffari was nominated by Trump and "some people are never going to get over that."

Thompson filed a bill this week to strengthen oversight of the DHS watchdog, requiring it to publish more detailed reports about its activities and complaints made to the agency tip line. Ivey is a co-sponsor and the ranking Democrat of the Committee's Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Subcommittee.

But Democrats said Cuffari's actions were troubling and led them to repeatedly question his judgment.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, questioned Cuffari Tuesday at the oversight committee hearing about why he failed to immediately notify Congress, as required by law, that he thought DHS was stonewalling his requests for the Secret Service's text messages.

Cuffari said he was working with senior DHS officials to obtain information he said the department was withholding from the agency. And he noted that DHS had also failed to preserve records or inform Congress about deletions.

"But that's the role of the inspector general," Raskin said during the committee hearing. "That's why we have an inspector general."

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The Washington Post's Lisa Rein contributed to this report.