Homeland Security launches criminal investigation into Secret Service

When the National Archives began taking odd-sounding steps earlier this week such as formally asking the Secret Service to investigate itself over the deleted 1/6 text message scandal, we pointed out that these are the kind of procedural steps the Archives has to take in case it decides to make criminal referrals in the matter, and wants the charges to stick. Steve Bannon’s current criminal trial is a reminder that investigators have to do everything by the book, so the defendant can’t get things thrown out with a pretrial motion.

Now, even as the National Archives takes steps toward what looks like it might be a criminal investigation, the Homeland Security Inspector General has formally launched a criminal investigation of his own into the matter, per NBC. This is notable because the Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security, meaning this Inspector General has direct authority over every witness and potential suspect in this scandal.

The Inspector General can’t directly bring indictments, but can ask the Department of Justice to bring indictments – similar to how the January 6th Committee successfully asked the DOJ to indict Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress.

This means the stakes are now really high for not only the Secret Service agents who were around Donald Trump on January 6th, but also for every Secret Service employee who may have witnessed anything relevant. This is a criminal investigation. Refusing to cooperate is obstruction of justice.

So now we watch for who within the Secret Service is willing to give up the key players in this scandal, and whether that will in turn prompt those key players to come clean and/or turn on each other. And of course the biggest question remains whether or not anyone within the Secret Service was plotting with Donald Trump to either commit crimes or cover up crimes. Given that this is now a criminal probe, anyone in the Secret Service who didn’t commit crimes would be wise to start speaking up, and quickly.