Text messages received and sent by top Pentagon officials who were part of the Trump administration on Jan. 6, 2021, have been wiped from their government-issued phones, according to a federal court filing that cites statements by the Defense Department and Army.

The text messages from that day — when a mob of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol — “were not preserved, and therefore could not be searched,” according to that filing.

The document says that Defense Department and Army officials have said: “That when an employee separates from [Department of Defense] or Army he or she turns in the government-issued phone, and the phone is wiped.”

The filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was a joint status report from lawyers involved in a lawsuit by the watchdog group American Oversight against the Defense Department, Army, National Guard and Justice Department. That lawsuit seeks records related to Jan. 6 from a group of former Pentagon officials.

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