Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is calling on the federal government to investigate the leak of more than 2,000 Social Security numbers belonging to Trump officials and allies that were inadvertently included in documents released by the Jan. 6 committee earlier this month.
In letters written to the Justice Department, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and the House Ethics Committee, Noem pressed officials to open an investigation, accusing the Jan. 6 panel of violating federal law. Noem’s Social Security number, as well as the information of her husband, her three children, and her son-in-law, were included in the documents that were released.
JAN. 6 COMMITTEE DOCUMENTS SHARE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS OF 2,000 TRUMP OFFICIALS AND ALLIES
“This callous, unacceptable handling of our most sensitive information could have permanent, widespread damage to the lives of my kids and my grandkids, as well as the families of the many other individuals impacted,” Noem wrote in letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland and House lawmakers on Thursday. “We were not notified of this breach except by the media on January 6, 2023. As of this writing, we still have not been notified by the agency responsible for the leak.”
Noem alleged the breach was a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, which prohibits agencies from sharing “any record which is contained in a system of records” unless they have consent from “the individual to whom the record pertains.”
The leak occurred after the Jan. 6 committee publicly released a trove of documents detailing its investigation into the Capitol riot, which included a copy of the White House guest book. The guest book lists the Social Security numbers of all White House visitors.
Although those numbers were supposed to be redacted in the final report, a version was released that did not remove the numbers. Those documents reportedly stayed up for several days until they were taken down after a media inquiry by the Washington Post, according to Noem.
The leak affected at least three members of the Trump administration as well as big names such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.
Reports of the leak prompted an outcry from those whose information was compromised, with Carson suggesting it was not an accident.
“Why is [it] that all these accidents tend to be focused in one direction? You know, you have to wonder about that. And I wonder if maybe some of these people suffer some of the consequences,” Carson told Fox & Friends First earlier this month. “It’s hard to be accidental because when I was at HUD, we paid a tremendous amount of attention to [the release of personal identifiable information], and it’s not an accident.”
Noem referred to Carson’s theory, although she stopped short of saying whether she believed it.
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“I am not sure whether that is true — but it is an open question that must be answered,” Noem wrote in her letters.
Members of the Jan. 6 committee have maintained the leak was inadvertent, citing the panel’s review process that requires members to “redact personal details and other sensitive information.” However, the breach calls into question how the high-profile government committee could have committed such an oversight.
