DOJ records show members of Mueller’s team ‘wiped’ phones during Trump probe
The documents were released after a lawsuit from Judicial Watch
Newly released records from the
Department of Justice show that the cell phones of multiple people on then-Special Counsel
Robert Mueller’s investigative team were "wiped" for various reasons during the probe.
The
records show at least several dozen phones were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion or other reasons -- and came before the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) could review the devices.
The documents show that Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman "accidentally wiped" his phone twice after entering the wrong passcode too many times in March 2018. Lawyer James Quarles’ phone “wiped itself” without his intervention, the records say.
The documents were released after a lawsuit from the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. They were first reported by Sean Davis of the Federalist.
The records say that a phone belonging to FBI lawyer
Lisa Page – whose anti-Trump texts with FBI agent Peter Strzok were of interest to investigators -- was restored to factory settings when the inspector general’s office received it.
Other officials, whose names are redacted, claim to have unintentionally restored their phone to its factory settings, deleting all records of communication.
Next to the name of one redacted person, the record says: “Phone was in airplane mode, no passcode provided, data unable to be recovered so had to be wiped.”
DOJ records show members of Mueller’s team ‘wiped’ phones during Trump probe