Suella Braverman sent a panicked email to a person she'd accidentally sent sensitive government information to asking them to delete it - TWO HOURS before admitting her blunder, it is claimed.
The under-fire Home Secretary reportedly took more than four hours to report the blunder, which led to her dismissal by Liz Truss six days before she was reappointed by Rishi Sunak.
Ms Braverman claimed she had reported it on official channels "as soon as I realised my mistake".
Today cabinet minister Michael Gove resisted calls for publish documents relating to the security breach.
Ms Braverman had been trying to send the draft written ministerial statement, which contained highly sensitive policy information, to a fellow MP from her Gmail account on October 19.
It was sent to the wrong person - a Parliamentary staffer - at 7.52am. The recipient messaged Ms Braverman highlighting it had been wrongly sent to them at around 8.30am, it is reported.
This morning the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg revealed Ms Braverman then emailed the recipient at 10.02am saying: "Please can you delete the message and ignore."
Ms Braverman had been trying to send the message, titled 'Draft statement' to a fellow MP, but accidentally sent it to a member of Parliamentary staff instead.
Asked if the Home Secretary had reported it straight away, cabinet minister Michael Gove said: "That's my understanding, yes".
The BBC reports that chief whip Wendy Morton - who lost her job last week in Rishi Sunak's reshuffle - was contacted by the office of the person who received the wrongly-addressed email.
Defending Ms Braverman, he said: "It is quite right that if something has been sent in error, the recipient would be invited to delete and to ignore that message.
"I don't know the full email chain and history, but that would seem to me to be an appropriate thing to have done."
He continued: "The message that was sent was intended for another Parliamentarian, so it wasn't as if it was sent into the ether to persons unknown."
Mr Gove rejected calls to publish documents related to her security breach.
"It is always the case of any politician like Suella who is brave and who's making changes... will inevitably face some opposition," the Cabinet minister told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.
"You only take flak if you're over the target."
Labelling it a "distraction", he said: "When you are dealing with national security measures, then it will often be the case that there is information that you cannot share because that might compromise national security, or the effective operation of government.
"I also critically want to ensure that what we don't do is on the basis of the imperfect information that is in the public domain, rush to judgment in a way that would seem to me to be inappropriate."
Today her Labour counterpart said she should be appearing on TV to discuss government security breaches - but is nowhere to be seen.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: "We have to have proper answers about whether or not this was the first security breach from Suella Braverman.
"We think that the papers and the warnings that were provided by the Cabinet Office and by the Cabinet Secretary to the Prime Minister should be sent to the Intelligence and Security Committee.
"So far, we've been asking repeatedly whether the Home Secretary has used her personal phone to send other Government documents. There's also questions about whether she was investigated for other security leaks, including around a case involving security service, and around a case involving sensitive legal advice around Northern Ireland.
"Now, this is just irresponsible. You can't have a Home Secretary who is not trusted by the security service, who is not trusted with important Government information.
"And it really shows the huge error of judgment that Rishi Sunak has made in reappointing someone just six days after she broke the ministerial code over security lapses, reappointing her to this immensely serious position."
