The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings.
The acknowledgment that the phones from the Pentagon officials had been wiped was first revealed in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit American Oversight brought against the Defense Department and the Army. The watchdog group is seeking January 6 records from former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, among other prominent Pentagon officials — having filed initial FOIA requests just a few days after the Capitol attack.
Miller, Patel and McCarthy have all been viewed as crucial witnesses for understanding government’s response to the January 6 Capitol assault and former President Donald Trump’s reaction to the breach. All three were involved in the Defense Department’s response to sending National Guard troops to the US Capitol as the riot was unfolding. There is no suggestion that the officials themselves erased the records.
The government’s assertion in the filings that the officials’ text messages from that day were not preserved is the latest blow to the efforts to bring transparency to the events of January 6. It comes as the Department of Homeland Security is also under fire for the apparent loss of messages from the Secret Service that day.
Miller declined to comment. Patel and McCarthy did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Defense Department did not immediately respond to CNN’s request. The US Army Public Affairs media relations chief, Col. Cathy Wilkinson, said in a statement that, “It is our policy not to comment on ongoing litigation.”
American Oversight is now calling for a “cross-agency investigation” by the Justice Department to investigate destruction of the materials.
“It’s just astounding to believe that the agency did not understand the importance of preserving its records — particularly [with regards] to the top officials that might have captured: what they were doing, when they were doing it, why they were doing, it on that day,” Heather Sawyer, American Oversight’s executive director, told CNN.
My first thought?
Who wiped them…the good guys or the bad guys?
What if these had exonerating evidence on them and Biden’s DOJ deleted them? Remotely wiped?
That was the first thought that hit me when I read the article.
But Patel Patriot had a different opinion.
If you don’t know Patel Patriot, he is incredible!
He does the Devolution Series and his research and reporting is absolutely amazing.
His take is that the answer is in fact Devolution itself and his report can be found here in Devolution Part 13.
The article is VERY long and detailed, but essentially his claim is that as Devolution was rolled out it needed to be protected and insulated and that wiping the phones was an essential step to stop the black hats.
This article will outline one of Trump’s key executive orders that I truly believe spells out that we are no doubt in the middle of some sort of Continuity of Government plan that I believe to be a plan of devolution. I briefly touched on this executive order in Devolution – Part 3, but it deserves its own article and detailed breakdown.
I’ve said many times throughout my series that we need to start thinking bigger. I always thought I was thinking bigger but researching for this article led me to the realization I was wrong. I’ve spent a majority of my series focused on the Department of Defense and the military, and they still are very important to what is unfolding, but devolution is much bigger than just the DoD and the military. Just how much bigger?
In the very first paragraph, we are made aware of the context that this EO is being issued in. Throughout the entire FMR EO, the phrase “natural disaster” is never mentioned, yet the context of “War and National Defense” is immediately clarified. This is very important. The entire basis for this EO is discussing continuity of government during war and you will see more proof of this as we continue.
Presidential Policy Directive-40 (PPD-40) is a classified directive that was issued by Barack Obama. Here is some further background:
PPD-40 itself is still classified. As such, we have no way of figuring out the full specifics within that document, but we are still able to learn a few important things about it from documents put forth by FEMA through Federal Continuity Directive 1 & Federal Continuity Directive 2. Both were created based on what is in PPD-40.
Federal Continuity Directive 1 (FCD-1) – Establishes the framework, requirements, and processes to support the development of executive department and agencies continuity programs by specifying and defining elements of a continuity plan.
Federal Continuity Directive 2 (FCD-2) – This directive implements the requirements of FCD-1 and provides direction and guidance to all departments and agencies.
The Federal Continuity Directive create the framework for implementation for all continuity programs for the executive branch. FCD-1 even has an entire annex dedicated to Devolution:
The above annex tells us that the focus of any continuity of government operation is to sustain the performance of National Essential Functions. The FCDs also define and list exactly what those National Essential Functions are:
So, let’s breakdown what’s already been established just by the end of the very first section of the FMR EO:
On December 7th, 2020, Trump issued the FMR EO using Presidential powers based in the context of War & National Defense
The Section 1 of the FMR EO explains that it is the policy of the United States to perform the NEFs as defined by PPD-40, in a continuity environment, regardless of threat or condition.
The Federal Continuity Directives gave us those NEFs
Back to the executive order:
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Trump released this Executive Order in conjunction with the Federal Mission Resilience Strategy (Strategy). I will cover the Strategy in detail in the second part of this article but the whole purpose of the Executive Order and the Strategy is to “increase the resilience of the executive branch.” To “ensure the continuity of operations, continuity of government, and enduring constitutional government.”
This section indicates a clear goal of moving from a reactive posture to a proactive posture when it comes to continuity of government and maintaining the NEFs. What I find most interesting here is what’s required to make such a transition. In order to shift into a proactive posture, you must specifically know, or at least strongly suspect, exactly what might be coming to cause a disruption.
I was a baseball player so forgive me for this imperfect metaphor. Hitting a baseball is not easy, especially if the pitcher has multiple different pitches to choose from (fastball, curveball, slider, etc.) If you don’t know what type of pitch is coming your way as a hitter, you are in a reactive posture. You’re left guessing. However, if you know your pitchers well enough, you can anticipate exactly which balls might be thrown your way, allowing you to hit way more home-runs.
The FMR EO and the Strategy consistently mention trying to get to a proactive posture regarding continuity. To me, that means they already have a pretty clear idea of what “pitch” is coming their way. Trump and those planning the devolution operation knew that the political establishment was going to follow through with stealing the election and as we get further along, you’ll see that the FMR EO and Strategy was Trump’s direct response.
Let’s briefly review what we just went over to make sure we understand the importance of what we have covered so far. This Executive Order stemming from Trump’s war powers is outlining the implementation and execution of a continuity plan. It describes to us the Executive Committee who is responsible for implementing and executing that plan. It also tells us there are subordinate bodies and working groups involved in supporting the Executive Committee and their work in implementing and executing that plan. It also tells us exactly who would serve as the back-channel to the President for this plan.
So the APNSA (AKA National Security Advisor), which would be Robert O’Brien, is designated as the new National Continuity Coordinator (NCC) which would make sense since he is the Chair of the FMR Executive Committee and that Committee is responsible for implementing and executing a continuity plan. But it also states it could be “his or her designee.” As crazy as this sounds, literally anybody could be the NCC. Whether the NCC is Robert O’Brien or somebody he designated, it’s becoming clear O’Brien plays a major role in devolution and Trump’s battle against the political establishment.
As I mentioned, his article is VERY long and detailed and I really recommend you read the entire thing yourself.
He’s worth the follow.
Read the full article from his Substack here — and you can also find Parts 1-12 to start from the beginning.
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