Cuff Cuffari

[Kid Berwyn]

As Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph V. Cuffari apparently orchestrated cover-ups of conspiracies to interfere with the election of 2020 and to overthrow the Constitution:

Homeland Security watchdog halted plan to recover Secret Service texts, records show

By Maria Sacchetti and Carol D. Leonnig
The Washington Post, July 29, 2022

The Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog scrapped its investigative team’s effort to collect agency phones to try to recover deleted Secret Service texts this year, according to four people with knowledge of the decision and internal records reviewed by The Washington Post.

In early February, after learning that the Secret Service’s text messages had been erased as part of a migration to new devices, staff at Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari’s office planned to contact all DHS agencies offering to have data specialists help retrieve messages from their phones, according to two government whistleblowers who provided reports to Congress.

But later that month, Cuffari’s office decided it would not collect or review any agency phones, according to three people briefed on the decision.

Snip…

A senior forensics analyst in the inspector general’s office took steps to collect the Federal Protective Service phones, the people said. But late on the night of Friday, Feb. 18, one of several deputies who report to Cuffari’s management team wrote an email to investigators instructing them not to take the phones and not to seek any data from them, according to a copy of an internal record that was shared with The Post.

Staff investigators also drafted a letter in late January and early February to all DHS agencies offering to help recover any text messages or other data that might have been lost. But Cuffari’s management team later changed that draft to say that if agencies could not retrieve phone messages for the Jan. 6 period, they “should provide a detailed list of unavailable data and the reason the information is unavailable,” the three people said.

Continues…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/29/homeland-inspector-general-texts/

The guy lied about his qualifications — and it was public knowledge in May, 2020:

The DHS Inspector General Claimed to Have a Philosophy PhD. He Doesn’t.

As Trump fires agency watchdogs, one of his most important appointees has exaggerated his credentials.

by Noah Lanard
Mother Jones, May 29, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general wants you to know he has the credentials to hold accountable a 240,000-person department responsible for keeping the country safe. Until Thursday, Joseph Cuffari’s official government bio stated, “Dr. Cuffari earned a Ph.D. in philosophy.”

That isn’t true.

Cuffari’s PhD from California Coast University is in management, and it was conferred by a school that was unaccredited at the time. In 2004, two years after Cuffari received the degree, the Government Accountability Office prominently featured California Coast University in a report on unaccredited “diploma mills” that required no classroom instruction and issued degrees for low flat fees.

Despite all this, Cuffari has regularly signed letters to Congress and the head of DHS as “Joseph V. Cuffari, Ph.D.”

Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/05/the-dhs-inspector-general-claimed-to-have-a-philosophy-phd-he-doesnt/

The guy was too shady for at least one important whistleblower:

Ex-DHS Aide Suggests She 'Went Very Public' Because She Didn't Trust Inspector General

Marco Margaritoff
Huffington Post, July 30, 2022

Olivia Troye served as a homeland and counterterrorism adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence. (Photo: Susan Walsh via AP)

Olivia Troye, a former Department of Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, said Friday there’s a reason she “went very public” about quitting her job in 2020 ― and suggested current investigations into the missing Secret Service text messages involve the same person.

Troye appeared on CNN as part of a panel alongside former CIA agent Phil Mudd and government ethics expert Norm Eisen when she made these claims. News anchor Jim Sciutto asked Troye why the missing messages, which are linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, weren’t actively preserved.

“It’s a little surprising,” said Troye. “I have worked technical migrations in the government, and I find it a little bit confusing that people were not aware that these messages were going to disappear, especially with the amount of planning that goes into these migrations. I can tell you that firsthand having done it.”

While DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office planned to contact all Homeland Security agencies to assist in recovering the missing messages in February 2021, sources told The Washington Post it decided not to collect the phones or review any data later that month.

“I came from DHS,” Troye told CNN. “When you work at the senior levels in the Trump administration … you know exactly where people’s loyalties lie. I know [Ken] Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf and all these people and Cuffari very well.” (Cuccinelli and Wolf were the acting leaders at DHS at the time.)

Continues…

https://news.yahoo.com/ex-dhs-aide-suggests-she-221308097.html

The guy may be unqualified to serve as Inspector General, but he’s over qualified to serve a wannabe Führer.



Book him, Danno.

[empedocles]

1. Coverr-ups in traitortrump world . . . can be complicated

[Kid Berwyn]

5. Very much so. Guy hails from AZ and USAF

From DHS:

Meet the IG

Joseph V. Cuffari was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General on July 25, 2019. Dr. Cuffari previously served as the policy advisor for Military and Veterans Affairs for Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona, and previously for Governor Jan Brewer. He served more than 40 years in the United States Air Force, on Active Duty, in the Reserves, and in the Arizona Air National Guard. He began his military service after graduating from high school and enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1977. He served in a variety of leadership positions with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) as well as with the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (OIG). He was a Commander with the AFOSI at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; England Air Force Base, Louisiana; and Naples, Italy, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 1989, he received the AFOSI Outstanding Officer of the Year Award. He also served for more than 20 years in the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a multitude of roles dating back to 1993. In 2013, he retired from his position as Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the Office of the Inspector General in Tucson, Arizona. In other capacities, he has augmented the United States Senate and House Intelligence Committees and the DOJ Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development. Dr. Cuffari earned a Ph.D. in Management in 2002, an M.A in Management in 1995, and a B.S. in Business Administration and Management Information Systems in 1984.

Source: https://www.oig.dhs.gov/about/MeetTheIG

From deep in the bowels of the MIC.

[dalton99a]

2. Dr. Cuffari was part of the plot

[Kid Berwyn]

8. A beeg part -- from watching the body guards to controlling information.

Glad his co-conspirators aren’t as competent.



Source: https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber

[HighFired49]

15. climatic??

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Either Bannon lives the incel life...

…or he’s a closeted environmentalist. In both, he’s a butt-ugly foul-smelling frustrated despot.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Last photo is a nice touch and reminder of who that thing really is.

[Kid Berwyn]

10. Thanks! It's an actual photo of a real Thing before a fake seal.

Here’s a painter’s interpretation:



I believe it was painted under duress as the hands and girth don’t match reality.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. Yes, it was projected during a speech trumPutin gave to conservatives.

Nobody in the crowd noticed.

[gab13by13]

4. Where in the world is Alejandro Mayorkas?

[Kid Berwyn]

11. Big time righteous indignation from him would be welcome.

But, no.

First on CNN: DHS inspector general told Jan. 6 panel he went to Mayorkas about Secret Service cooperation

By Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer, Ryan Nobles, Jamie Gangel and Whitney Wild
CNN, Fri July 15, 2022

Excerpt…

Cuffari's description left the impression that the Secret Service had been "footdragging," the source said. The inspector general told the committee they were not getting full access to personnel and records.

Cuffari said he brought the issue to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas more than once and was told to keep trying to get the information. Ultimately, Cuffari decided to go to Congress because he could not get anywhere within DHS with his concerns. Separately, a law enforcement official told CNN about Cuffari going to Mayorkas.

DHS said in a statement that it "has ensured and will continue to ensure that both the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol have the information they have requested."

Thompson told CNN the IG said during their meeting that the Secret Service has not been fully cooperative.

"Well, they have not been fully cooperating," the Mississippi Democrat said, adding: "We've had limited engagement with Secret Service. We'll follow up with some additional engagement now that we've met with the IG."

Continues…

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/politics/homeland-security-inspector-general-deleted-text-message/index.html

That was then. Who knows what now? Some serious explaining about who, why, where and when fired would be nice, too.

Please feel free to add what you and DU find, gab13by13. This stop the treason stuff is important to share.

[gab13by13]

16. I only have history to share about Cuffari,

He shut down an investigation into Trump's super spreader rallies.
He shut down an investigation into Trump's Lafayette square photo op.

I'm pretty sure that Mayorkas has the power suspend or fire Secret service agents, I don't know if he has the power to suspend Cuffari?

I am just saying that Mayorkas is the Director of DHS and I am waiting for him to speak publicly WTF is going on? People are crying for President Biden to take actions, I'm just saying, where in the world is Mayorkas?

[Kid Berwyn]

19. Thank you. Excellent questions and observations.

Speaking on behalf democracy: We very much appreciate the input.

[duckworth969]

6. Not the crime but the coverup

Just like Watergate, the crime is one matter.

J6 was extremely serious and treasonous.

But what people went to jail or resigned for were the efforts to cover up the crime.

At some point, someone in J6 is going to flip.

They’d rather do that than go to jail, or at the very least avoid a felony or a long sentence.

We may never know the contents of the deleted texts.

But the “missing minutes” in the Watergate tapes didn’t end with “oh well”.

People resigned, went to jail and their careers in politics were over.

That’s something to consider.

Is it ultimately satisfactory?

No, it’s not.

But the deleted SS and DHS texts won’t keep the J6 investigation from proceeding or prevent all the dominoes from falling.

[Kid Berwyn]

20. Cuffari covered up USG White Supremacist and Hate Groups cover-up.

Homeland Security Watchdog Delayed Inquiry, Complaint Says

The department’s inspector general delayed looking into a retaliation complaint by a former intelligence chief until after the 2020 election, according to officials and a whistle-blower.

by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan
The New York Times, July 1, 2021

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general blocked an inquiry into whether senior agency officials demoted an employee who criticized the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and a whistle-blower complaint obtained by The New York Times.

The inspector general, Joseph V. Cuffari, ignored recommendations from his investigators and delayed the inquiry until after the 2020 election, according to officials familiar with the matter and a whistle-blower complaint filed in April.

At issue was whether Brian Murphy, a former intelligence chief at the department, was demoted by its leadership last summer for warning his superiors and Mr. Cuffari’s office that the Trump administration had deliberately withheld reports about the rising threat of domestic extremism — a warning that proved prescient after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 — and Russia’s attempts to influence the election.

Mr. Murphy filed his own complaint about his reassignment in September. But Mr. Cuffari and his aides delayed looking into his claims for weeks last fall and limited the time investigators had to conduct interviews, according to people familiar with the matter and the separate April complaint, filed by Brian Volsky, a former senior investigator in Mr. Cuffari’s office.

Snip…

In his complaint last September, Mr. Murphy said he was demoted because he had raised concerns with his superiors and the inspector general on multiple occasions — from March 2018 to August 2020 — that the Trump administration had distorted intelligence to align with the president’s political priorities. Chad F. Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary at the time, and his top aides have repeatedly denied that claim. The investigation into Mr. Murphy’s claims is continuing, according to Mark Zaid, his lawyer.

Continues (Sorry about big Googlie link — my pad gets hijacked by NYT app)….

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi0y6vSvaP5AhU4LEQIHWM3BCcQFnoECCIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2021%2F07%2F01%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhomeland-security-inspector-general-whistle-blower-complaint.html&usg=AOvVaw022x98eTrlObDt7Zdichn3

[Hotler]

7. Cocksuckers, all of them. nt

[Kid Berwyn]

21. There certainly are a lot of them.

Individuals from each branch of government — from federal to local — have been exposed. The rot runs seemingly on the GOP side of the aisle.

I’d bet they thought they wouldn’t be caught, let alone held to account. They are in for a big surprise. Each and every traitor needs to found, named, investigated, indicted, tried and locked up for the rest of their lives.

[UTUSN]

9. K&R

[Kid Berwyn]

23. POGO digging up big dirt on these treasonous bastards.

Missing: More January 6 Texts Sought by Congress

Once again, DHS’s watchdog failed to sound the alarm — this time about missing texts of top Homeland honchos

BY NICK SCHWELLENBACH & ADAM ZAGORIN
POGO.org | FILED UNDER INVESTIGATION | JULY 28, 2022

It’s déjà vu all over again. In defiance of an explicit congressional request and the law, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from early January 2021 are missing, according to an internal agency record obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) and congressional sources.

In late February 2022, the department’s management division informed DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari’s office in writing that text messages sent or received by then-Acting Secretary Chad Wolf, then-Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, and Acting Under Secretary for Management Randolph D. “Tex” Alles cannot be found. The records show Cuffari’s office was told that government phones used by those top DHS leaders might also be inaccessible.

Cuffari’s office has kept Congress in the dark about the lost DHS leadership texts for more than five months. Four congressional committees had long before asked for all January 6-related federal records from relevant agencies, including DHS, in a letter dated January 16, 2021, ten days after the attack on the Capitol.

It’s unclear if Cuffari has told DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, even though there is a legal mandate requiring his office to do so “whenever the Inspector General becomes aware of particularly serious or flagrant problems, abuses, or deficiencies relating to the administration of programs and operations.” The inspector general's office and DHS did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The new revelations of missing text messages to and from the senior-most DHS leaders point to a systemic failure by the department beyond the Secret Service to adhere to federal records law — a problem that many agencies have. Wolf said he was “unaware” that any of his texts are missing. “I have no clue” about this, he said. “All my phone and text messages should be available.” Cuccinelli did not respond to a request for comment.

Continues…

https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2022/07/missing-more-january-6-texts-sought-by-congress

[duckworth969]

24. POGO link appreciated, signed up for their newsletter

[Lonestarblue]

13. The Biden Administration should have done more house cleaning immediately on taking office.

They should have known that a Trump appointee was corrupt. I don’t recall any of his political appointees who haven’t been corrupt.

[Kid Berwyn]

25. Absolutely first thing. DoJ, Defense, State...clean house, top-to-bottom...

…yet, so many skunks remain — even with whistleblowers warning danger:

Watchdog investigating DHS inspector general over retaliation allegations

By Geneva Sands and Zachary Cohen
CNN, February 11, 2022

Excerpt…

Additional details about the CIGIE investigation, including its precise origins and who brought the complaint, have not been made publicly available.

Cuffari, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, had a tumultuous start at DHS, and has been occasionally accused of looking the other way for political reasons regarding actions that involved the former administration, which he vehemently disputes.

Early in his tenure, personnel issues plagued the inspector general's office, leading Cuffari's office to enlist the help of an outside law firm.

In late 2020, WilmerHale completed its independent investigation into allegations that several senior employees engaged in an assortment of unprofessional behavior "that was designed to undermine and contravene the authority of the two Inspector Generals (IGs) to whom they reported at DHS OIG from late 2017 to 2020."

The heavily redacted report found an "atmosphere of mistrust and unprofessionalism" within the office and concluded: "Their efforts created a culture of fear and retribution within the agency directed at employees deemed insufficiently loyal."

Continues…

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/dhs-inspector-general-investigated-watchdog-group/index.html

While President Biden needs to get his team in place and in gear, the rest of the federal government needs to do their jobs, too. Otherwise, they’re part of the problem.

[KPN]

14. "Cuff Cuffini" .... I like it! In the meantime,

how about Mayorkas (sp?) or, if needed, President Biden suspending him at least?

[gab13by13]

17. Mayorkas hasn't even given a public statement

that I am aware of.

[Kid Berwyn]

26. Weird: Mayorkas backed USSS explanation.

Homeland Security Chief Defends Secret Service on Missing Texts

Bloomberg Law, July 19, 2022

* Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is backing up the Secret Service’s explanation for missing texts related to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

* Mayorkas says at Aspen Security Forum that a computer system migration that officials say resulted in lost texts from Secret Service agents was scheduled in advance; the Secret Service is part of Department of Homeland Security

* Mayorkas pledges the agency will learn from the situation as more facts surface
House committee is seeking texts in investigation of Capitol attack

Continues (req. subscription)…

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/homeland-security-chief-defends-secret-service-on-missing-texts

[SergeStorms]

18. I have a "Doctor of Divinity" degree.....

from the Universal Life Church. I paid $10 for it in the mid-60s and it's still good to this day.

It was supposed to be a tax dodge and a way to defeat the selective service administration to stay out of Vietnam. To my knowledge it didn't work for either.

I thought it was a testament to my intelligence when I received my PhD before my Bachelors or Masters degrees though. 😁

I guess I should have applied to the Federal Government. I could have been Director of the FBI or NSA, maybe even DHS. If Cuffari could do it, why couldn't I?

[Kid Berwyn]

27. You're over-qualified to work for Uncle Sam. (+ Will Bunch bombshell)

Furthermore, being a person of integrity would disqualify you for consideration to work with any MAGA Republican.

Are missing Homeland Security texts hiding the biggest secret of Jan. 6?

Is the new bombshell about missing DHS texts from Jan. 6 hiding a scheme to stage a military coup and blame it on so-called antifa leftists?

by Will Bunch | Columnist
Published Jul 31, 2022

Excerpt…

But even more critically, I want to raise the issue of just what exactly texts to and from DHS higher-ups like Wolf and Cuccinelli — part of a flood of ultra-Trump loyalists placed in critical government posts in the days leading up to the attempted coup — might reveal. Beginning in the summer of 2020 — as the fraught presidential election drew near and Trump was trailing Joe Biden in the polls — Wolf’s DHS became the key nexus in a scheme to highlight leftist protesters who were branded, accurately or not, as and labeled America’s top national security threat.

The 45th president then did something quite odd for a supposed lame duck: He openly declared war on in a drive that came to a head on Jan. 5. On the day before the insurrection, the president tried taunting left-wing activists on Twitter, in a reverse-psychology tweet that they should “stay out of Washington.” More importantly, a bizarre administration press release said, “President Trump will not allow Antifa, or any terrorist organization, to destroy our great country.”

There have been other clues that Team Trump expected that fighting with antifa would define the Jan. 6 effort. Chief of staff Mark Meadows wrote in a Jan. 5 email that the National Guard was on standby “to protect pro-Trump people” the next day. The next morning, the Capitol Police were warned to look for leftist demonstrators in the crowd.

But none of this ever happened. In a history-defining plot twist, people on the left who’d protested Trump on prior occasions smelled a trap and spread the word: Stay home on Jan. 6. Someone even created a hashtag: #DontTakeTheBait. There’s no record of any leftists in or around the Capitol, even though that afternoon Trump was telling confidants like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that antifa was causing the Capitol mayhem.

We now know that some of the extremists in Trump’s circle had been lobbying for the president to declare some sort of national emergency that could have allowed DHS or the military to seize voting machines. A Jan. 6 showing by leftists could have prompted such a declaration, or an early call to the National Guard to protect Trump supporters and clear the Capitol, thwarting the certification of Biden’s victory. Such schemes might be reflected in the texts to or from the top officials in DHS — the messages we now know have been destroyed.

Continues…

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/dhs-missing-texts-january-6-20220731.html

Whatever is in those missing texts must be really bad, otherwise they wouldn’t risk spending years behind bars to protect Heinous Anusorange.

[SergeStorms]

28. Thanks, I hadn't read that.

There's some interesting information in there, huh?

He was trying to get left-wing protesters there for cover, but we're too smart for the likes of TFG.

Trump was a Democrat in his earlier days, but Democrats didn't trust him and wouldn't consider having him run for any office as a Democrat. So he went down a rung on the ladder to the republican party and the rest, as they say, is history.