A criminal probe has been opened into deletion of Secret Service Jan. 6 text messages.
I suspect the test messages were deleted, not to protect Trump, but to protect certain Secret Service Agents. Likely texts related to instructions (ultimately from Trump) to drive Pence from the Capitol and keep him away "for his own safety". Then the process of certifying Biden's victory would be thrown into chaos. Possibly Trump could be certified as the winner, or at least the certificates sent back to the states, throwing things into chaos.
The DOJ just instructed the Secret Service not to continue their search for the deleted text messages. This makes sense. If the Secret Service found a backup of these messages, they would probably just delete them. Asking them to find the messages is like asking the main suspects of a burglary to go into a house and collect evidence. They would probably just put on gloves and proceed to wipe down everything to remove fingerprints. Some other agency needs to do conduct this search, not them.
What we are supposed to believe is the Secret Service just happened to switch equipment, which resulted in the January 5 and 6 messages being deleted. Then in late January, they got instructions to save these messages. But they kept silent about these messages had just be erased. If they had immediately informed congress the messages had been erased, copies likely would have been found on various servers. Now, after 18 months, maybe this is no longer possible.
Clearly the Secret Service is up to no good. Maybe there is not enough evidence for criminal charges. But everyone who was, or may have been involved in deleting these messages, needs to be fired. We can't have agents whose loyalty to the Constitution is questionable.