- An ex-Secret Service agent says the relationship between agents and protectees may be damaged.
- "I don't think it was willful," he said of the deleted text messages.
- The Secret Service told agents to communicate over email when he was in the agency.
The intense scrutiny of the Secret Service following the revelation that the agency deleted text messages on January 5 and January 6, 2021, could end up seriously damaging the relationship between agents and the political leaders they protect, one former decorated Secret Service agent said.
"The Secret Service has to be able to work with these people, and these people have to trust them," Donald Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent, told Insider. "I think the question that the country needs to start asking itself is, what is the damage being done when the Secret Service is constantly put in a position where it seems like that protection relationship is being questioned?"
Mihalek, who is currently the executive director of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, started his career as a special agent in 1998. He was the on-scene commander of the maritime rescue operation of 300 Secret Service personnel trapped in Lower Manhattan during the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Insider reached out to several other former agents for comment on the agency's deleted text messages.
The Secret Service's role in the January 6 attacks have come under intense focus, especially after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's explosive account of the day and now the deleted text messages that are "likely not recoverable." The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General accused the agency of deleting the text messages after being asked.
"I don't think it was willful," Mihalek said. "I don't think there's anything nefarious at all."
Though Mihalek agrees that the American people deserve answers, he believes that's only going to come after the agency has the ability to conduct an internal investigation to figure out what happened. But the intense scrutiny of the Secret Service, Mihalek believes, may impact agents' ability to perform their missions moving forward.
"Nobody's asked that question," he said. "It's not a good situation to have the president in or the Secret Service in where there's a gap in the relationship because of a lack of trust."
The consequences of that gap might end up being something the nation can't bear, he added.
Mihalek served on the presidential protective detail from 2007-2011 and was promoted to senior special agent in 2015, before retiring in 2019.
The deleted texts signify that there is a problem within the agency, Mihalek said. The House January 6 Committee tweeted Wednesday that it has "concerns about a system migration that we have been told resulted in the erasure of Secret Service cell phone data" three weeks after the Capitol attack.
—January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) July 20, 2022
Mihalek said when he was in the Secret Service, texting and calling were not considered operational, secure methods of communication, which he believes is still the directive. Cell phones and text messages go through a third party service provider, which, when he was there, were Verizon and Apple.
"Every government cell phone is a third-party provider," he said. "So the Service always said, if you're going to send anything operationally, do it over email."