Even under the best of circumstances (that is: not in the midst of a seditious national crisis of its own making), the Trump administration wasn’t exactly the gold standard when it came to record-keeping. So there’s a perverse sense of underwhelming obviousness with the ongoing spate of revelations that a number of potentially crucial White House documents from the attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021, are, evidently, missing.
First came reports that a number of Secret Service phones had been wiped clear of all text messages from Jan. 6, including ones that could have potentially corroborated — or, as the agency first attempted to claim, disprove — former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s allegations about Trump’s behavior on that day. Not great, considering the growing evidence that the Secret Service may have been broadly “contaminated” by Trump over the course of his presidency. And as of this week, it seems even more potentially significant text messages from Jan. 6 may be missing as well. And once again, they seem to be missing from some of the Trump White House’s key national security and intelligence figures.
