SEC Chair Under Fire for Lost Text Messages

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) has expressed frustration with SEC Chair Gary Gensler, suggesting he might go down in history as “the worst SEC chair” after a recent report showed that “avoidable errors” resulted in the loss of Gensler’s text messages over the past year.

Last week, the SEC Inspector released a report revealing that in July 2023, Gensler’s smartphones ceased communication with the agency’s mobile device management system. Shortly after, in August, the SEC’s Office of Information Technology implemented a new policy that wipes devices of any that haven’t communicated with the system for at least 45 days. By September, Gensler sought help from the Office of Information Technology to recover applications that were missing from his devices, but a quick factory reset on his smartphone led to the loss of a year’s worth of text messages.

According to the Inspector’s review, the SEC’s IT office failed to back up Gensler’s messages and did not delete the text messaging application from his device. Although some messages were eventually retrieved, the review revealed that recovery attempts were incomplete. Notably, Gensler did not contribute to the initial list of messages to be recovered, which lacked entries from his fellow committee members. His staff noted that the list was meant to be a minimal starting point, not a comprehensive one.

Gensler’s office indicated that he typically used text messages for routine administrative tasks such as scheduling. Yet, the inspector’s findings showed numerous significant communications between Gensler, his staff, fellow commissioners, and other senior officials, raising concerns about the completeness and clarity of the recovery process regarding the missing messages.

Some of the recovered texts pertained to discussions about actions against a cryptocurrency trading platform among other official matters.

Emmer, a vocal critic of Gensler, stated that he believes Gensler has not been forthright about his actions. He remarked, “I would argue that he wasn’t honest all along; this just smells. They claimed to want a clear, open policy, but there’s nothing clear about his conduct.”

Emmer also mentioned the potential political motivations behind Gensler’s actions, suggesting he may have been aligned with the Biden administration’s objectives against former President Trump. He stated, “The Trump administration is reversing much of the complications we faced over the last four years. So, this doesn’t seem like an honest initiative by the Biden administration. In my view, Gensler stands out as one of the least effective bureaucrats I’ve encountered.”