The parliamentary committee tasked with investigating the storming of the US Capitol has asked the security service charged with protecting the president of the United States to provide it with deleted text messages to its clients by Tuesday.

The committee announced its request ahead of a new hearing that will be broadcast live on television at prime time - next Thursday - and focus on what former President Donald Trump was doing when his supporters were attacking Congress on January 6, 2021.

The head of the Parliamentary Investigation Committee, Penny Thomas, said in a letter that "the committee is looking for the relevant text messages and any subsequent reports issued in any of the security services departments (...) related in any way to the events of January 6, 2021."

And the director of the relevant security service, James Murray, was told in a letter - yesterday, Friday - that he had a deadline until Tuesday to deliver the missing text messages.

Trump claimed the election was rigged and called on his supporters to march on the Capitol (Getty Images)

Difficulty obtaining records

And Joseph Kvari, Inspector General of the National Security Administration, said in a letter he sent Thursday to congressional leaders that he had difficulty obtaining Secret Service records dating back to January 5 and 6, 2021.

He wrote in this regard, "The department informed us that some of the messages of the US Secret Service (in charge of the security of presidents) dated January 5 and 6, 2021 have been erased as part of a phone exchange program."

These messages may be crucial in investigations by the US House of Representatives and the US Department of Justice to determine whether the former Republican president and his close advisers encouraged the violent attack on the Capitol, in an attempt to prevent the endorsement of the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential elections held in November 2021 .

Members of the Secret Service were accompanying Trump that day, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, who was in hiding in the Capitol after pro-Trump activists called for his execution.

In testimony June 29 to the House of Representatives Committee of Inquiry, a former White House employee said Trump tried to force the Secret Service to take him to Congress to join his supporters there.

The security service confirms so far that the phones of its members have been reset as part of the planned exchange program.

Trump refused to intervene for hours

Liz Cheney, the deputy chair of the parliamentary committee investigating the storming of Congress, announced that "Trump refused for hours to intervene to stop this attack."

"You'll hear that Donald Trump never picked up his phone that day to tell his administration to help the police," said Cheney, one of the few Republicans who dared publicly criticize the billionaire.

Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee Investigating the Breakthrough in Congress Liz Cheney (Getty Images)

The Republican billionaire, who is openly talking about his possible candidacy for the presidency in the 2024 elections, strongly condemns the work of the committee, describing its members as "politicians who are thugs and thugs."

"Have you seen them before? (...) Yes, they are basically the same lunatics who have driven the country crazy with their lies and stories," he wrote.

 storming the capitol

In his speech minutes before the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump urged thousands of his assembled supporters to move toward the Capitol buildings, and said, "If you don't fight so hard, you won't have a country anymore." Trump did not appeal to them to leave. The building was only announced after more than 3 hours, in a video recording he posted on his Twitter account.

Trump supporters storm the Capitol (Getty)

More than 2,000 Trump supporters participated in storming and looting the Capitol, forcing lawmakers to flee, and disrupting the certification of election results for more than 10 hours.

"I feel your pain (...) but we have to go home now," Trump told his supporters from the White House gardens, and the demonstrators withdrew from the perimeter of Congress after the imposition of a curfew by decision of the mayor of Washington.