Special counsel Jack Smith‘s statement that several work phones used by Secret Service agents “did not contain any recoverable information” has raised fresh questions about the protection agency’s contention that text messages sent around the time of the January 6, 2021, uprising on the Capitol had been irretrievably deleted.

In a federal indictment filed in August, Trump is facing four charges pertaining to his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The federal election interference case is one of several court cases the former president is currently facing; one of two brought by Smith and one of two regarding allegations of election interference. In all the cases against him, Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.

In a response to a request by former President Donald Trump‘s lawyers for an expansion of the evidence afforded to them in the case concerning allegations of election interference, the special counsel wrote that prosecutors had obtained the devices and later returned them without objection from Trump’s team. Smith argued that the former president’s request be denied as it would cause an unnecessary delay to the start of the trial, which is scheduled to begin in March 2024.

“Though the defendant points to the fact that the Government obtained during the investigation ‘several official phones from USSS [U.S. Secret Service] employees,’…he fails to inform the Court that the phones did not contain any recoverable information and that, though informed that the Government intended to return the phones to USSS by a certain date, he failed to interpose an objection,” read the response filed on Saturday.

The Secret Service previously blamed a replacement program in which devices were “reset” for lost text messages after they were requested by a Congressional committee investigating the uprising, and has faced accusations of deleting the messages intentionally to protect Trump—claims it has vociferously denied.

But the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) possession of the original devices has prompted queries about whether the texts could have still been recovered by investigators after the phones were wiped.

“J6 committee subpoenaed the texts only to be told they were not recoverable,” Julie Kelly, a political commentator, wrote on Sunday. “Now it looks like DOJ had [the] actual phones but still could not find the deleted messages?”

She added: “This is insane—no one can possibly believe this given the invasive tools the govt has and has used in this investigation.” Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, responded: “Really?”

A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment beyond its statements in the court filings when approached by Newsweek on Monday.

Smith said in a previous filing that the Secret Service had handed over 3.1 million pages of evidence to both legal teams in the case, and in his recent rebuttal of Trump’s request said the material was “only marginally relevant and yet constitutes a sizable portion of the discovery.”

The latest request by Trump’s lawyers comes after they asked for the trial to be frozen pending an appeal against an earlier decision by Judge Tanya Chutkan to reject arguments that his actions around January 6 were protected by presidential immunity.