The US Secret Service has provided one text message to the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in response to reports that multiple messages from the period under investigation were destroyed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General accused agents of erasing messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, before and during the assault on the Capitol by supporters of then-president Donald Trump.

Following a request from the DHS, the Secret Service stated that it had identified the message between Capitol Police and the Secret Service.

The government requested all text messages made or received by twenty-four Secret Service agents between December 7, 2020, and January 8, 2021.

A subpoena for messages from January 5 and 6 was issued on Friday.

Under anonymity, a committee aide on January 6 acknowledged that only one text had been delivered.

Last Thursday, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi reported that communications were deleted when members' phones were reset "as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration."

Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee, and Liz Cheney, vice-chair, expressed alarm in a joint statement about the likelihood that phone data had been lost owing to a system move.

"The procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act," according to the statement.

The Secret Service stated it studied the possibility of recovering the lost texts.

"The Secret Service is further researching whether any relevant text messages sent or received by the 24 identified individuals were lost… and if so, whether such texts are recoverable," the letter stated.