We at First Draft believe in recycling; that goes for post titles too. I first used this title in 2019 during the “perfect phone call” impeachment investigation. I’d say I added quotation marks to the title to protect the innocent but there are no innocents in the text coverup scandal. Before diving into that sewer, the song that inspired the title:

The late Robert Hunter had a way with words. The title is, of course, a paraphrase of “Test me test me, why don’t you arrest me.”

It’s unclear what Hunter thought about text messaging.

The text deletion coverup first hit the news when the Secret Service was asked by the J6 committee to provide texts of texts on and around Dipshit Insurrection day. It spread to the upper echelons of the Homeland Insecurity Department as the messages of the Wolf and the Cooch went AWOL.

For the nickname impaired, I’m referring to former acting head Chad Wolf and his former deputy the dread Ken Cuccinelli. I should have called Chad the Dire Wolf after *this* Garcia-Hunter song:

There are credible allegations that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffair ignored evidence of text chicanery. The agency watchdog was asleep on the job.

The good news is that POGO (Project On Government Oversight) investigated the sleepy watchdog and hit him upside the head with a stick:

The DC-based independent watchdog group has investigated corruption and abuses of power in the federal government for decades, often by fielding tips from sources working in government.

 

In late July, they reported that Cuffari had been briefed on the texts’ erasure as far back as February 2022, and he’d reportedly considered issuing a six-page management alert about the missing texts before deciding against it. The alert would have made the situation public.

 

“We’ve been probing Cuffari’s handling of high-profile matters for more than a year, and have numerous sources providing us with insights,” Schwellenbach, one of POGO’s lead investigators on the story, told Talking Points Memo. “We were well-positioned to learn more about how he has failed to inform Congress in a timely way about deleted records related to January 6.”

In the great tradition of the cartoon character, POGO has curtly called for Cuffari’s removal. In case you’re too young to remember the Other Pogo:

Another watchdog group, American Oversight, growled at the Defense Department where texts belonging to former Trump officials have gone missing:

As the lawsuit proceeded, the agencies presented the group with joint status reports throughout the year, but it wasn’t until March 2022 that they admitted that all texts from former employees, including top Trump administration figures, had been wiped at the end of Trump’s term — over a week after the group requested them.

 

“For those custodians no longer with the agency, the text messages were not preserved and therefore could not be searched,” the status report reads, “although it is possible that particular text messages could have been saved into other records systems such as email.”

I wonder if texts by former Devin Nunes aide, Trump sycophant, and children’s book author Kash Patel have vanished. Oddly enough, a post I wrote about Patel’s book got some mystery hits last week.

Thanks to TPM’s Kaila Philo for writing about POGO and American Oversight. It would have been an oversight to not give her credit. The jokes are all mine.

Before moving on to *another* text message mess, a skeleton texting GIF:

The Daily Beast has a text-related story with an uplifting headline: Tucker Carlson ‘Shitting Himself’ Scared That His Alex Jones Texts May Leak.

The texts are now in the hands of the J6 committee, which could cause the Mothertucker further embarrassment:

Carlson and Jones have maintained a friendly relationship for years. The Fox News primetime star has made multiple appearances on Infowars, gushed over Jones’ unhinged rhetoric, branded him “more talented than I am,” and supplied a fawning blurb for the bullshitting blowhard’s upcoming book.

 

“Maybe Alex Jones is onto something,” Carlson wrote of his pal on the back cover of The Great Reset: And the War for the World. “Read this book and decide for yourself who’s crazy.”

He’s the crazy one, Tuck-Tuck.

Sounds like that asswipe Tucker could use some of this:

Presumably, you recognize that as the featured image of my Trump search piece. If you don’t, read it now. You won’t regret it.

The last word goes to Los Lobos:

PS: I’d be in trouble with Dr. A if I failed to post a picture of our late, great cat Pogo.