Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All

by Dan Bongino

  I pondered how much more of this I could take. It was not the workload but the emotional toll it was taking on my family that was growing intolerable. I took solace in the fact that this was surely the last lead advance in a “hot zone” I would ever do and that if I made it back, it was finally over.

  We landed at Bagram Airfield on a cold December afternoon, having traveled under an umbrella of secrecy from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The base in Afghanistan was not informed of the exact reason for our assignment but was told to provide support for a visit by a “dignitary.”

  I was honored to be working with our fighting men and women. Having lost my Uncle Gregory in Vietnam, I always revered men and women willing to selflessly forfeit their lives for the freedom of others. The men and women at Bagram did not disappoint; they worked tirelessly with us to ensure a “safe” war zone. When talking to the soldiers, I found it incredible how many were proud to be there but felt unsure of achieving the mission’s long-term goals. I took every opportunity to speak with the soldiers I was working with, and I listened with rapt attention as they described their experiences and the stories of soldiers who had been wounded, maimed, or killed in action. Touring the hospital at the airfield was devastating. I saw the horrifying injuries as a result of improvised explosives, and the delicate care given to our to our enemies as well as to our men. The trip to Afghanistan permanently changed my view of our country’s involvement in that war. It may be clichéd to say, but it was a life-changing experience.

  Planning and implementing a security advance in an active war zone is a challenge few Secret Service agents have experienced. Preparing for incoming mortar fire, the very real danger of Air Force One being shot out of the sky, and the threat of an organized attack with heavy weapons by a determined quasi-military unit are not common threats within the United States, but they were daily occurrences in Afghanistan.

  A few days into the trip, I met with General David Petraeus, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, in downtown Kabul after flying from Bagram in the back of a war-torn C-130 cargo plane. Our meeting with the general was pleasant. I found him to be very receptive to our ideas and I was honored that, given his experience in the country, he was eager to hear and adapt my ideas on how we could ensure the safety of the president in this unique situation. We discussed some options on transport for the president should he decide to make the trip to Kabul, and although the general assured me that transportation could be secured, I was hesitant to approve it. This became a contentious issue, with widely varying opinions on the matter. General Petraeus felt it could be done, but some of his subordinates felt otherwise and the intelligence operators on the ground strongly advised against it. They believed once it was discovered that we were there, we would be shot out of the sky by rocket-propelled grenade fire upon departure from Kabul. I deeply trusted the intelligence team on the ground. They worked under extremely dangerous conditions and, sadly, the facility where I met with them was attacked with heavy weapons two years later and two heroes were lost.

  The decision to let the president fly to Kabul from Bagram was going to be a defining moment for me. After a meeting with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry at our embassy in Kabul, I remained skeptical that the trip could be secured. I knew we could effectively ensure the security of the airfield at Bagram, but downtown Kabul was like nothing I had ever seen. It appeared that time had forgotten portions of the city, and law and order were nonexistent. We traveled with heavily armed teams and did not leave the US facility without heavily armored vests and in windowless armored vans.

  Every location we visited was a security nightmare. There was no practical way to secure a group of city blocks that consisted of hollowed-out buildings and mazes of empty, crumbling stairwells. Securing the area would require potentially thousands of soldiers. The president of the United States is not simply a man—he is the singular, living embodiment of an entire branch of government, and any potential threat to his security must be completely mitigated. Our military partners in country had a remarkable “can do” attitude and their sense of duty was admirable, but I was unsure we could secure the visit to Kabul. This all came to a boil during a secure video teleconference call between me, my intelligence counterparts on the ground in Afghanistan, and the Situation Room in the White House.

  After the Czech Republic and Indonesia, I was accustomed to being put on the spot by the White House staff, and this time I was forced to ask for more time. In the event they decided to override my recommendation to not take the president to Kabul, I began to design a plan to lock down the city. I never before requested the level of support that I needed for this operation and was uncomfortable that involving so many military personnel whom I had not worked with before would be distracting from their war mission. Regardless, we moved forward with the plan.

  The hours prior to the president’s arrival at Bagram Airfield were tense. A sandstorm made landing conditions for Air Force One treacherous, but had the positive side effect of eliminating the possibility of taking the helicopter trip to Kabul. After conferring with the White House military aide assigned to the visit, we decided to cancel the Kabul leg of the trip since the sandstorm conditions made the flight extremely dangerous. It did not escape me that all of the contentious negotiating regarding the danger of the Kabul visit was rendered meaningless due to the fortuitous intervention of Mother Nature.

  I was relieved by this development, but I still needed reassurance from the White House military aide that Air Force One could safely land at the airfield, given the rapidly deteriorating conditions. The Air Force One advance team advised that it was going to be a tough landing but it could be done safely. Satisfied, but not content with his answer, I moved on to the next issue requiring immediate attention: the Secret Service advance agents who remained in Kabul to handle that portion of the visit were stranded there due to the sandstorm.

  As I walked around the temporary command center trying to think through my options, I was informed that the president’s staff was adding an event to the itinerary, now that some time had been freed up due to the cancellation of the Kabul visit. The president was going to meet with a group of soldiers in a vehicle bay and I needed to inspect the room. Upon entering, I saw a group of somber-looking soldiers and casually asked why they were meeting with the president. What I heard changed me forever. The ranking officer in the group said, “Because there were more of us last night.”

  He explained that during a patrol, their Afghan guide turned on them and shot multiple members of the group. The story was hard to fathom. It was stunning to hear firsthand how, in an attempt to free a country from the tyrannical grip of a savage group of Taliban cowards worshipping a philosophy of destruction and death, our men were killed by the beneficiaries of our goodwill. I was proud that these heroes would receive their moment with the president, but it again made me question everything I believed about this war. Somewhere, mothers, fathers, wives, and husbands were being asked to forfeit a future of endless possibilities with their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives in exchange for a cause many of those we fought for not only did not understand, but violently resented.

  Watching Air Force One make a treacherous landing at Bagram in a sandstorm was an incredible sight and was the first sign the personnel on the airfield received that the “dignitary” they had been expecting was indeed the president. The visual contrast of the bold blue and white paint of Air Force One descending against the backdrop of the Afghan mountains in the dark desert night created a vision resembling a polished diamond against a deep, jet-black background. As the White House press pool feverishly snapped photos, the story was released and immediately filtered through the cable news channels.

  My wife e-mailed me, finally realizing what my cryptic mission had been. Her messages were frantic as she was understandably concerned about my safety. The scene was one of controlled chaos and the lack of light on the airfield made it difficult to see anything outside of the camera flas
hes from the White House press pool photographers. We had to keep the lighting low to avoid being a target for enemy mortar fire so, to keep the president from tripping on the runway, I took out my flashlight to light his path.

  The first stop was the troop rally and, although it was late at night local time, the reception by those in attendance was very warm. We worked at a distance from the president as he patiently shook every hand in the crowd, taking over an hour to greet every soldier. As the time passed, I grew more concerned about our security situation. I knew that our enemies were now aware that the president was on the ground, and with every minute the danger grew. I was also receiving minute-by-minute briefs on the status of our stranded personnel in Kabul. We desperately needed them to get in the air and on their way to Bagram.

  My next stop with the president was the base hospital, where he would award Purple Hearts to the wounded heroes in the facility. I kept my distance from the president as he spoke with the soldiers out of respect for their privacy, and I saw the soldiers’ faces light up as he spent time with each one. After five years on the PPD I felt ready to move on, but it was moments like these that always reignited my passion for my work.

  As the night wore on, the exhaustion started to catch up with me. It was a huge relief to get the phone call from the Kabul team telling me that a brief window had opened and, although it was risky, they were able to fly and would land at Bagram with just enough time to make the flight home. The meeting with the soldiers was taking a while and I knew we had several hours ahead before the mission was complete. The final logistics were put in place. Air Force One would take off without runway lights to avoid being hit by mortar fire, but the lights would be activated for the support plane carrying me and my team. Therefore, to reduce our risk of being taken down by mortars, we had to take off immediately after Air Force One. To expedite the departure, I asked all the support personnel we could spare without sacrificing security to board the plane.

  As the president finished his visit, I ensured he would say his final words while inside the hangar and not exposed on the runway. After this last meeting we would be finished with the visit, but not without a brief moment of unintended humor. President Obama was scheduled to meet with a small group of military officials and a Delta Force operator who was patiently standing outside the meeting room with all his equipment on, including his weapons. I was approached by a staff member who asked me if I wouldn’t mind telling the Delta Force operator to relinquish his weapons before entering the room. Tired and in no mood for stupidity, I laughed loudly at this ridiculous request given that we had used every armed military unit on the base to help us secure the president and now he wanted me to ask an elite member of one of the finest military units the world has ever seen to drop his weapon. This brief interaction was a microcosm of the insulated, out-of-touch world some of the Washington, DC, cocktail party crowd operate in. One brief look into the Delta Force operator’s eyes was enough to tell his story, a story that never has a happy ending but always has a hero as its subject.

  After the meeting, we hurriedly loaded the president and his team onto the plane and within a few short minutes it was traveling down the dark runway and into the air. There was no time for any sigh of relief as the runway lights were turned on and we were now in very real danger if the support plane was targeted for attack. I jogged over to the plane, thanked my military counterparts, took a head count—and to my dismay I saw we were missing one of our military support personnel.

  Minutes felt like hours as I called him over and over. After ten minutes I began to grow very concerned and the team on the plane began to worry as well. We could not stay much longer with the runway illuminated like a bright target for the enemy. It was then that I saw headlights and a military vehicle driving toward me. Leaping out of the vehicle as it was still moving, our lost team member appeared and with no time for questions, he boarded the plane and I told the pilot to go. It was the fastest I had ever seen a plane take off, and we were safely on our way home.

  Finally, my five-year journey on the PPD had come to a close.

  14

  MEDIA SPIN VS. SECURITY REALITY

  A DISTURBING MEDIA NARRATIVE began shortly after President Obama’s inauguration that reflected poorly on the American people yet was entirely inaccurate. Despite any hard evidence, cable news outlets and prominent bloggers initiated a national conversation when they began speculating that President Obama had been receiving an unprecedented number of threats due to his race. What started in the editorial and opinion-based outlets soon became a mainstream media meme when a book about the Secret Service was released in 2009 that quoted an inside source as stating that threats to the new president were up nearly 400 percent. This misleading and inaccurate statistic disregards a number of trends I witnessed firsthand while working in the Protective Intelligence Unit in the New York field office and while assigned to the PPD.

  During my twelve-year tenure with the Secret Service, the volume of reported threats to our designated protectees increased. That is not in dispute. However, there is a clear difference between reported threats and an increased general threat level. The exponential growth in social media platforms and mobile communication created an environment where casual threats could be easily made and just as easily reported. Threats, both veiled and direct, made in bars or between friends and relatives historically were only occasionally reported to the Secret Service and only investigated when someone who had actually witnessed or heard the threat reported the person making the threat. This changed with the advent of social media and the growth in e-mail communications. Threats via e-mail could now be easily forwarded on and social media postings that contained threats could be shared and “retweeted,” enabling any concerned person reading the threat to initiate a Secret Service investigation. The stories of the “overwhelming” threat level to President Obama ignored the simple facts that the Secret Service does not publicly disclose its statistics on threats to the president and that the general threat level to President Obama was relatively consistent with historical trends.

  In my experience, the social media factor alone is primarily responsible for the growth in threat reporting, yet in spite of this, the media firestorm surrounding the report of a 400 percent increase in threats and an “overwhelming” threat level because of the president’s race grew until it was finally refuted months later in congressional testimony by Secret Service director Mark Sullivan. I had never witnessed such a blatant misuse of data attributed to anonymous sources to indict a nation and broadly claim that racism was driving a desire to harm the president. Anyone who questions a media bias need look no further than the irresponsible, headline-grabbing reports on this particular story to confirm that it exists.

  The growth in threat reporting will likely continue as increasing numbers of people join social media networks. The Secret Service cannot ignore any threat regardless of its absurdity, and this is creating a strain on resources. Many within the agency feel strongly that the Secret Service should maintain its role as a lead agency in the investigation of financial crimes, and others feel that it should focus more on dignitary protection. Maintaining a dual mission as a protection agency and an investigative agency is going to become increasingly difficult in the future as threat reporting continues to grow, and it will be harder to defend in an atmosphere of constrained financial resources.

  The Secret Service, along with a number of other federal law-enforcement agencies, could solve the majority of its manpower issues by agreeing to forfeit duplicative, redundant investigative mandates already filled by other federal agencies. The FBI has the capacity to absorb the Secret Service’s computer crimes division and a significant portion of its financial crimes investigations. Counterfeiting could be turned over to underused federal investigators in the Treasury Department. These simple adjustments would free thousands of agents to focus exclusively on protection and threat assessment and investigation. It is understandable that this is not what the up
per echelons of power within these agencies wish to hear, but I am confident that they quietly know it to be true.

  As I’ve said already in this book, with big, bureaucratic government come big, bureaucratic consequences, and one of those consequences is that the bureaucracy’s primary reason for existence over time becomes to protect itself. The reason often cited by Secret Service headquarters representatives for holding on to the investigative mission is that conducting federal criminal investigations ensures a higher quality of protection agent. In my experience this claim is not based on fact. It seems that many of the headquarters staff who continue to erroneously make this claim are also lobbying for retirement positions within financial institutions where they have supervised investigations, and they are reluctant to lose a bargaining chip.

  The Secret Service criminal investigators I have worked with are some of the finest in the world, but no amount of spin is going to make two plus two equal five. In a future of strained federal government budgets, every agency is going to have to prioritize its mission and do what is done in the business world through leveraging economies of scale and scope. Having numerous federal agencies with overlapping investigative and protective responsibilities is, in my experience, not only a budget problem but a national security problem and, in the wake of the 2013 Boston terror attack, the issue should become a congressional priority.

  Agencies are inherently territorial and despite post–9/11 mandates from lawmakers to better coordinate investigative missions and intelligence sharing, I have seen little progress. Protecting an agency’s budget and mission will always be priority number one for managers within an agency and no congressional mandate will change that. Unless we begin to merge the rapidly multiplying federal law-enforcement workforce into a streamlined model, we will continue to see intelligence and investigative failures similar to those associated with the Boston Marathon bombing.