The very Secret Service

 "Worthy of Trust and Confidence"

                                    – Secret Service motto

A couple of weeks ago, when White House aide and insider Cassidy Hutchinson gave her explosive testimony to the bipartisan Congressional Jan. 6 Commission, one of the things she revealed was that President Trump may have physically assaulted the driver of the presidential vehicle when the driver refused to take him to the Capitol.

While Hutchinson was reporting secondhand information that she heard from Secret Service agents who were on the scene, the revelation was shocking.

According to findings of the commission, based almost solely upon the testimony of Republican witnesses, Trump wanted to personally lead a contingent of his followers (some of whom were armed, we learned) to the Capitol to disrupt the Constitutionally mandated certification of votes in the Electoral College.

Within hours, it seemed, two Secret Service agents – Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel – refuted her story. Suddenly, the GOP was jumping for joy, positive Hutchinson perjured herself with her story, and by doing so, cast doubt on the truth of her entire testimony.

Then came some unexpected blowback. It seems the Secret Service deleted all emails, messages and transactions covering the dates of Jan. 5-6 because of a scheduled cellphone information migration.

Imagine that. A government agency supposedly above the squalor of politics deleted potential evidence at a curiously critical moment in the now-apparent coup attempt. Nothing, apparently, was backed up. So it's gone, lost in cyberspace.

This could have been information that either confirmed or denied Hutchinson's testimony. Given that the messages were deleted, it's fair to assume Hutchinson's story is valid. Capitol police, who heard the radio traffic that day, are confirming her story.

But more importantly, the missing info could shed light on what was going on at the Capitol during the insurrection. The Secret Service wanted to whisk Vice President Mike Pence to a secure location. The trouble with that is Pence, as president of the Senate, needed to be on hand to certify the votes. The count couldn't continue without him. Pence demanded that he stay on site, and to his democracy-saving credit, he did.

Does that suggest the Secret Service was implicit in Trump's now apparent plan to delay the vote count and insert alternate electors? The missing information could clear that up. But, no, the information is missing. It all sounds incredibly specious, if not suspicious. Secret Service agents are now lawyering up, another indication that all is not what it should be.

It also seems that the agency has been politicized to the point of its credulity being damaged. This is a hallmark of the Trump administration, which values loyalty over constitutionality.

In a perfect world, we long for transparency from our government agencies. They are, in fact, employees of the people. Weak excuses and weak apologies make us weak as a nation. How vulnerable can we be when a president is derelict in his duties and spends three hours cheering on "his people" in an attempted coup?

It's repulsive. This is not government. It's fascism. It's anarchy. It's certainly not transparency.

And I doubt it's worthy of our trust and confidence.