by Dan Bongino
Second, the decision by Secret Service management, many of whom had relocated many times themselves, to continue the destructive policy of requiring relocations for continued promotion within the agency, was one that still boggles the mind. Nearly every agent I spoke with during my time in the New York field office, the Secret Service training center, the PPD, and while on the road conducting protection operations, absolutely despised this policy. Yet, headquarters managers refused to change the relocation policy and only made token changes to the “career track” options, which had little impact on the real lives of agents who loved the Secret Service but also loved their families and refused to repeatedly relocate them. Hundreds of talented special agents were lost to other federal agencies due to this misguided policy, and no one was held accountable for this disaster.
By filling some Senior Executive Service management positions within the Secret Service with people who have never served in the agency, it would finally be possible to get a critical set of outside eyes on the operations of the agency – eyes that have not been subjected to the infamous “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” groupthink trap that currently pervades the agency. Military and business leaders have not “always done it” the Secret Service way, and although there are no guarantees, outsiders to the Secret Service would be more likely to ask critical questions, such as “Why the hell are we moving agents around the country, spending a fortune to do so, and getting nothing more than mass resignations and crushed morale to show for it?” I assure you, a successful business or military leader would not accept an answer such as “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” The excuse for not doing this has traditionally been, “The Secret Service has a unique and hard-to-understand protection mission, and an outside manager from the agency wouldn’t understand it.” Yes, the protection mission is incredibly complicated, but so is building a modern motor vehicle, and yet, no one expects the CEO of a major car company to be able to walk on the assembly line and build the vehicle himself. The upper management of any organization doesn’t have to grasp every nuance of the organization they run, but it’s essential that they lead the organization by providing strategic vision and audacious, visionary goals.
Leadership means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But you can be assured that your organization’s leadership has failed when the overwhelming majority of your workforce cites the lack of leadership as a problem in employee surveys, and the documented history of critical decision making leaves behind a trail of mission failure, employee attrition, and bruised morale. New leadership, from outside of the Secret Service, isn’t limited by the tunnel vision “groupthink” that is all too common throughout today’s Secret Service. Many of the executive management staff of today’s Secret Service grew up together in the agency and learned from one another. Many were successful security advance agents who taught others how to navigate the difficult world of presidential protection. But presidential protection agents, who excel at the mechanics of security advance work, may not be best suited as upper-level managers tasked with dealing with Congress on the mission of the Secret Service, with dealing with the Secret Service workforce on quality-of-life issues, or with dealing with the media when there is a Secret Service crisis. Sometimes, having nothing but insiders managing an organization encourages repetition of the same mistakes because no one realizes that a mistake has even been made. It reminds me of a story I once heard about a junior firefighter who survived a massive outdoor forest fire while his senior firefighter associates perished. One of the reasons given was that the senior firefighters were trained to never leave behind their gear, and therefore they tragically perished when the flames engulfed them as they were weighed down by the bulky gear. The junior firefighter didn’t respond the same way. He ditched his gear and escaped.
Sometimes, inexperience with mistakes can be an advantage, and in the case of the Secret Service, it’s time to try something new as the mistakes pile up. America cannot afford to lose another president, and fixing the Secret Service is the only way to ensure that we don’t.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1.Kevin Liptak, Michelle Kosinski, and Chris Frates, “Drunk Secret Service Agents Crash into White House Barrier,” CNN, March 12, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/11/politics/drunk-secret-service-agents-white-house.
2.Mhairi MacFarlane, “Watch Video of ‘drunk’ Secret Service Agents Nudging White House Bomb Scene Barrier with Vehicle,” Mirror, March 24, 2015, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/watch-video-drunk-secret-service-5394235.
CHAPTER 1: THE SPECIAL AGENT MESS
1.Mike Jones, “Aaron Rodgers: “You Have to Learn How to Win in the Playoffs,” Washington Post, January 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/football-insider/wp/2016/01/07/aaron-rodgers-you-have-to-learn-how-to-win-in-the-playoffs/?utm_term=.lb9f63b37b75.
2.The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: Combating Terrorism: Presidential Decision Directive 62,” May 22, 1998, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd-62.htm.
3.106th Congress, “Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000,” US Government Printing Office, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-106publ544/html/PLAW-106publ544.htm.
4.Joe Davidson, “Why Is Secret Service Morale So Low?” Washington Post, December 8, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/12/08/why-is-secret-service-morale-so-low/?utm_term=.25da9d786abd.
5.Joseph Hagin et al., “Executive Summary to Report from the United States Secret Service Protective Mission Panel to the Secretary of Homeland Security,” December 15, 2014, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1218_usss_pmp.pdf, 3.
CHAPTER 2: THE UNIFORMED DIVISION OFFICER MESS
1.Hagin et al., “Executive Summary to Report from the United States Secret Service Protective Mission Panel to the Secretary of Homeland Security,” 5.
CHAPTER 3: THE EVOLVING THREATS FROM THE “BIG SIX”
1.“Report: Hillary Leaves 9/11 Mem’l Early Due to ‘Medical Episode,” Fox News Insider, September 11, 2016, http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/09/11/hillary-clinton-reportedly-leaves-911-memorial-ceremony-early-due-medical-episode.
CHAPTER 4: THE THREAT OF A TACTICAL ASSAULT ON THE PRESIDENT
1.Ironically, it’s the difficult-to-articulate “street sense” developed over time that I believe causes a lot of problems with the recording of stop-and-frisk interactions. Many cops know why they stopped a person, but when forced to recall the details even moments later, they forget some of the specifics due to the stress of the situation, and they subsequently cannot repeat what the reasonable suspicion was that led to the stop.
2.Benjamin Weingarten, “America’s ‘Known Wolf’ Jihadist Problem: Why Haven’t We Learned from Our Mistakes?” Counter Jihad Report, April 20, 2017, https://counterjihadreport.com/2017/04/20/americas-known-wolf-jihadist-problem-why-havent-we-learned-from-our-mistakes/.
CHAPTER 8: TRUMP AND TWITTER: A BLESSING AND A CURSE
1.Donald J. Trump, tweet to Dan Bongino, Twitter, August 10, 2016, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/763391459110313984?lang=en.
2.Fox News Watters’ World, April 23, 2017. http://nation.foxnews.com/2017/04/23/trumps-social-media-director-battling-fake-news-we-re-driving-liberals-insane.
CHAPTER 10: THE BROKEN WHITE HOUSE SECURITY PLAN
1.Marisa Schultz, “Secret Service Wants to Build $8M Fake White House for Training,” New York Post, March 17, 2015, http://nypost.com/2015/03/17/secret-service-wants-to-build-8m-fake-white-house-for-training/.
CHAPTER 14: YOUR CHILD’S SCHOOL IS SAFER BECAUSE THE SECRET SERVICE STUDIED ASSASSINS
1.Robert A. Fein and Bryan Vossekuil, Preventing Assassination: A Monograph: Secret Service Exceptional Case Study Project, May 1997, https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Photocopy/167224NCJRS.pdf
2.“Preventing School Shootings: A Summary of a U.S. Secret Service Safe School Initiative Report,” NIJ Journal 248 (2002): 11, https://www.ncjrs
.gov/pdffiles1/jr000248c.pdf.
3.Ibid., 12.
4.Ibid., 14.
5.Ibid.
6.“About Us,” the US-CERT website, accessed May 19, 2017, https://www.us-cert.gov/about-us.
7.Kris Osborn, “DARPA Tasks BAE with Workaround to Secure the Power Grid in the Event of Massive Attack,” Defense Systems, April 13, 2017, https://defensesystems.com/articles/2017/04/13/grid.aspx.
INDEX
A
Air Force One, 45, 89, 90, 91
al-Qaeda, 55–56, 59
American Greed (TV show), 20
attacks on the White House, 101–2. See also fence-jumping incidents
Aum Shinrikyo, 72
Awlaki, Anwar al-, 59
B
Bush, George W., 21, 24, 33, 37, 43, 44, 78, 89, 90, 97, 106
Bush, Jenna, 44, 62
C
changes the Secret Service should implement to enhance White House security, 102–9
Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, 56
chemical attacks, recent examples of state-sponsored, 71
Clinton, Bill, 13, 67, 68, 157
Clinton, Chelsea, 49
Clinton, Hillary, 15–16, 48–49, 59–63, 67–68, 82
Counter Assault Team (CAT), 36, 97
Counter-Sniper Team, 106–8, 117
D
De Niro, Robert, 148
Department of Homeland Security (or, DHS), 12–13, 16–17, 18, 55, 96, 158
Desmonics, 123
drones, 4, 76–78, 80
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 29, 130–31, 132, 138
E
Eastwood, Clint, 32
Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF), 19–20, 22–23, 27
Emergency Response Team (ERT), 39, 106, 107–8, 117
EMP attack, 159
Exceptional Case Study Project, 146–51
F
FBI, 3, 15, 29, 52, 59, 141, 156
fence-jumping incidents (White House), 3, 35–36, 40, 99, 101–2, 109
Ford, Gerald, 10, 132
Franco, Lawrence Christian, 145–46
Fromme, Lynette “Squeaky,” 10
G
Gonzalez, Albert, 20
Gonzalez, Omar J., 35–36, 39, 102
H
Hasan, Nidal, 59
Hinckley, John, Jr., 10
Howard Stern radio show, 145
I
ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 141
In the Line of Fire (film), 32, 147–48
interagency cooperation. See chapter 13 (137–41)
IRS, 29, 116
ISIS, 55–56
J
John Paul II (pope), 10
K
Kennedy, John F., 5, 131
Kim, Steve, 144–45
Kim Jong-nam, 71
Kim Jong-un, 71
K-9 Team, 106–7, 117
L
LEAP (Law Enforcement Availability Pay), 27–28
Lemon, Don, 82, 83
Leventhal, Rick, 48
Lieberman, Joseph, 145
Life Inside the Bubble (Bongino), 83–84
M
Major Events Division, 17, 18, 20–21
Malkovich, John, 147–48
Marine One, 36, 89, 90–91
Mateen, Omar, 59
McKinley, William, 23–24
mission creep, 13–14, 17, 19, 24, 27–28, 29, 104
Moore, Sara Jane, 10, 132
N
9/11. See September 11, 2001, attacks
NYPD, 1, 36, 57, 59, 125–26, 138–39
O
Obama, Barack, 36, 51, 84, 90, 98–100, 106, 135
OPFOR (opposition force) training, 53–54
Operation Firewall, 20–23
P-Q
PATRIOT Act, 24
Petersen, William, 32
pipe and drape, 54, 139–40
PPD (Presidential Protective Division) / VPPD (Vice Presidential Protective Division), 25, 36, 43–47, 51, 59, 62, 66, 73, 80, 88–100, 106, 108–9, 118, 129–30, 138, 162
presidential “bubble,” 98–99, 100
R
Rahami, Ahmad, 59
Reagan, Ronald, 5, 10, 45, 131, 157, 159
Rice, Susan, spying scandal, 135
Rodgers, Aaron, 12
Roosevelt, Theodore, 23–24
Rove, Karl, 37
rule of threes, 133
S
Scavino, Dan, Jr., 84
school violence (targeted), 149–51
Secret Service
agent compensation cap, 28
hiring and promotion process. See chapter 11 (111–18)
the most important mission of the, 143
special agent training program. See chapter 12 (121–35)
September 11, 2001, attacks (aka 9/11 terror attacks), 10, 13, 21, 25, 26, 48, 59, 67, 75
“Shadowcrew,” 20
special agent training program. See chapter 12 (121–35)
State Department budget versus Secret Service budget, 104
“street sense,” 166ch4n1
T
targeted school violence, 149–51
terror groups, 15, 55–56, 58, 62, 72
To Live and Die in L.A. (film), 32
Townsend, Fran, 37
training, hours of (Uniformed Division, 2013), 42
Tran, Jonathan, 35, 39, 40, 102, 109
Trump, Donald, 35, 40, 81–85, 87, 92, 98, 99, 100, 135, 161
Trump, Donald, Jr., 87
Trump, Donald, III, 35, 87, 92, 95
Trump, Vanessa, 87
Twitter. See chapter 8 (81–86). See also 99, 161
Tyson, Mike, 125
U-V
Uniformed Division. See in particular chapter 2 (31–42). See also 73, 76, 80, 88, 89, 103–7, 109, 112, 113, 129
hours of training in 2013, 42
United States Secret Service Protective Mission Panel report (2014), 25, 42
US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team), 158
W-X
Washington Post, 24
White House
changes the Secret Service should seek to implement to enhance security at the, 102–9
security breaches. See attacks on the White House; fence-jumping incidents (White House)
Y-Z
Yushchenko, Viktor, 71
