The phones of senior Pentagon officials were wiped after the January 6th riot at the Capitol, according to new legal filings, raising more questions about what the defense establishment thought of the riot – and President Trump’s role in it.

Watchdog group American Oversight published court records indicating that the Pentagon “wiped” government-issued phones of senior Defense Department and Army officials who were in charge of mobilizing the National Guard to respond to the attack, including then-Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.

In addition to the questions raised by the data deletions, the revelation deals a body blow to attempts by the January 6th committee to dig into exactly what was going on among the Trump administration’s top defense officials before, during, and after the Jan. 6 riot. It also makes the Defense Department join the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security in agencies that deleted records that could have proven vital to the investigation.

“From the reporting about the Secret Service and the senior DHS officials, it becomes pretty clear that this is not just a DOD (Department of Defense) problem, not just an Army problem, but multiagency,” a spokeswoman for American Oversight said.

A letter sent by the group to AG Merrick Garland is urging him to open an investigation into the deletions and the possible destruction of federal records.

However, a defense official said the deletions were just standard “process.”

“Nobody was trying to hide or conceal anything,” the unnamed official told the Washington Post. “That would be a false narrative.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)