Secret Service fails again

The Secret Service has embarrassed itself again, when an agent in Trump’s protective detail was off-station at a critical moment. This latest security failure did not result in any casualties – but only because no one planned to “try again.” But it does highlight the excuse-making culture that took over the Secret Service long ago. It also shines yet another spotlight on the hasty social decision to admit women – regardless of physical condition – to any and all jobs that were once the exclusive preserve of men. Trump can and should “fire” the Secret Service and buy a full protective package from AT-RISK International, as previously suggested. Furthermore, the Service badly needs a thorough overhall, preferably by a former protective-service agent. But society must also decide on limits for women at work outside the home.

Details of the latest Secret Service failure

As CNAV reported yesterday, Donald Trump gave a speech to a large indoor crowd – and an outdoor overflow crowd – yesterday. The event took place at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

He spoke of how the Biden administration has ruined the economy, how Kamala Harris cannot repair it, and how he, Trump, will repair it. But – unknown to attendees and presumably to Trump himself at the time – a higher drama was taking place backstage.

RealClear Politics’ Susan Crabtree started a damning series on the Secret Service shortly after someone tried to kill Trump. This morning she broke a shocking story: a female member of Trump’s detail was off-station five minutes before Trump arrived.

What made the matter less excusable was why she was off-station. She was literally nursing her infant child – and did not seek permission, nor even give notice, to the site agent. (The site agent is the officer in charge of the physical site of any event involving a protectee.) This site agent learned of this interesting fact while “do[ing] one final sweep of the walking route.” In a room set aside for any emergency situation, the site agent found this female agent nursing her child, with two family members present. Worse, an “unpinned” event employee – one whom the Secret Service did not clear – had brought her into that room.

Sources and perspective

Ms. Crabtree obviously has cultivated several Secret Service sources. Three of them told her the details related above. The female agent, assigned to the Atlanta Field Office, violated at least five work rules:

1. No “working agent on duty” may “bring a child to a protective assignment.”
2. This female agent was off-station at a crucial time.
3. Somehow this agent and two family members bypassed a checkpoint that uniformed Secret Service were running.
4. An unpinned employee – meaning not supposed to be there – escorted those four (agent, child, and family members) into that room.
5. The Service had reserved that room for any emergency involving Trump. If another assassin had “tried again,” that room would have been compromised at an even more critical moment.

Official spokesman Anthony Guglielmi blandly said the incident had “no impact” on the event, but was under review.

“All employees of the U.S. Secret Service are held to the highest standards. While there was no impact to the North Carolina event, the specifics of this incident are being examined. Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further.”

Ms. Crabtree also embedded a photograph of Trump arriving at the event with at least five Secret Service agents surrounding him. Though they were all male, Trump stood a good head taller than at least one of them.

Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit reported, two weeks ago, that the lead agent (also female) was still boss of the Trump detail.

Immediate reaction

Several other X users reacted in outrage to Susan Crabtree’s long-form post. Several users asked why the child was on-site. Others called attention to her being off-post, bringing other family members there, and bypassing a checkpoint.

At least three users called for firing the agent involved.

Dan Bongino, on his show today, raised a darker possibility: that someone set up this detail to fail.

If that’s true, then it is either a “dry run” or else the planned assassin didn’t get to the venue. Bongino also repeated what many others said: the lead agent should never have a pregnant fellow agent on this detail. Let her work a desk until her child is no longer nursing, he said – at a minimum.

What has happened to the Secret Service?

CNAV agrees: this female agent should lose her job. She should have ordered her priorities before accepting (or requesting) assignment to the Donald Trump detail, of all details. Instead she displayed an appallingly lackadaisical attitude toward her job, its unique rules, or indeed anyone but herself.

But a larger question arises: why was she even on such a job to begin with? Should women ever serve in a position that is as close to combat as it gets, short of actual combat? (Add to it that the Secret Service obviously needs some taller agents. A protectee who towers over his detail has no protection at all from the agents surrounding him.) Any protective or combatant service has desk jobs; perhaps let women – especialy pregnant or nursing women – serve there.

But more than that, society must reexamine its abandonment of the division of labor between men and women. American society abandoned that during the Second World War, when nearly all men of military age rushed off to war. That division reasserted itself after the war – but did not last. And in its zeal to admit women to all formerly male preserves, it even let women become police officers, fire fighters – and bodyguards to public officials. Someone needs to ask whether women are ever qualified to so serve – other than undercover, the equivalent of covert agents.

Darker considerations

Even beyond that, the Secret Service has lost all the professionalism it once had. Kim Cheatle’s vow to make the Service 30% female by 2030 is only part of the problem. This latest incident is the worst example.

That assumes that the Secret Service is merely incompetent and has not acted out of malice. Donald J. Trump is the most threatened protectee in history, and only Divine protection has kept him alive. The threats he faces are both foreign and domestic. For those reasons, allowing the sloppiness that plagues his security detail to continue, constitutes attempted murder, election interference, and treason.

Trump would now be within his rights to “fire” the Secret Service. Let him refuse to cooperate with them any further. (That detail isn’t fit even to protect Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) Two and a half weeks ago, Jerome R. Corsi reported that Trump was considering a protective package from a private firm having experience in protecting heads-of-state. That company, AT-RISK International, was preparing a plan to supplement Secret Service protection. Outside expert Anthony Molinari was suppoed to be circulating AT-RISK’s plan within the campaign and among Trump’s top donors. What happened to that plan? Why have we heard no more about it? And why supplement? AT-RISK should replace the Secret Service. Failing that, Trump would have no shortage of military veterans ready to form an all-new security force, all his own.

Summary

In sum, the Secret Service might be so bad at its job that it couldn’t protect anyone, Republican or Democrat. Recall that in April, another Secret Service agent – on Vice-President Kamala Harris’ detail – struck her superior officer. Susan Crabtree was on that case also, and noted then that the Secret Service had lowered its standards.

But perhaps the Service is compromised and is setting Trump up repeatedly. Either way, Trump shouldn’t trust them anymore. When he returns to the White House, perhaps he can appoint someone who can:

• Find the mole(s) within the agency responsible for facilitating assassination attempts (if that’s what’s happening), and
• Restore the Secret Service to the professional organization it once was.