Letters to the Editor: The deleted Secret Services texts are a national emergency

To the editor: The discovery that Secret Service agents deleted text messages sent on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021 “as part of a device-replacement program” raises terrifying questions regarding the security of American democracy. Had some senior members of the Secret Service participated with then-President Trump or his allies in the coup attempt?

An answer to this question is critical. Ensuring the safety of the president and other elected officials is central to our democracy. The Secret Service is an essential element in this action.

Every Secret Service agent and executive must be interviewed under oath for all they said, wrote and did around Jan. 6. Nothing less will do.

Sidney Weissman, Highland Park, Ill.

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To the editor: I recall President Richard Nixon’s assistant Rose Mary Woods testifying under oath in 1974 with her bizarre explanation of the infamous erasure of 18½ minutes of tape in the Watergate case.

Now we have an entire stock of Secret Service texts erased, and we’re to believe that those involved can be trusted to testify truthfully simply because they are “under oath”?

Those words have sadly lost their meaning since the Trump era. Just look at the man himself, who swore an oath to the Constitution yet refuses, to this day, to adhere to one of its basic tenets: respecting the peaceful transfer of power.

Hopefully some cyber-sleuths can capture the texts and we can learn the truth.

Linda Shahinian, Culver City