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

by Dan Bongino

  I assure you, if the same level of investigative scrutiny was applied to the White House staff members conducting advance work as was applied to the Secret Service, the results would not be flattering. In the aftermath of the scandal, the media obtained a quote from an anonymous former Secret Service agent who alluded to unscrupulous behavior at “wheels-up parties.”

  Wheels-up parties are informal gatherings of the entire advance team and the local officials involved in a presidential visit that occur after the president leaves town and Air Force One goes “wheels up.” These largely innocuous gatherings are typically uneventful thank-yous to the local officials for their support. I always found them to be a chore, but I attended to pay my respects to the hard-working folks who make a safe visit a reality. Ironically, the only bad behavior I ever witnessed at these events was by intoxicated White House staff.

  Despite the realities of both staff and agent behavior on the ground, the administration publicly berated the Secret Service and avoided any mention of cleaning up its own house. The rules seemed to apply only when there was a political advantage to be gained. Publicly attacking the Secret Service was a no-risk political play for the administration. The White House spin team knew that the Secret Service was not going to defend this abhorrent behavior and the president could appear as the disciplinarian. I blame the president’s team for using the situation as an opportunity to bolster their image, knowing that it is common knowledge that some of his own people have failed to uphold this public call for higher standards of conduct. The hypocritical calls for “accountability” from the administration and certain DC lawmakers (who, allegedly, may have participated in illicit activities themselves), speaks to the untouchable attitudes of a Washington, DC, class who view American citizens as misbehaving children and themselves as the disciplinarians.

  19

  A POLITICAL LOSS, AND WHY ACTION MATTERS

  BY THE EARLY SUMMER OF 2012, the Colombia scandal had quieted down enough for me to focus completely on the remainder of my campaign. We continued working through the summer, knocking on countless doors, making thousands of phone calls, shaking tens of thousands of hands, and attending every crab feast, barbecue, community gathering, and parade that we could fit into the schedule. Despite the great efforts of my staff, volunteers, and family, I was not optimistic on Election Day of 2012. I had no reason to be. An unexpected and unfortunate turn of events had arisen late in the campaign that made victory the longest of long shots. The campaign staff and I were completely caught off guard in late September when, with a little more than a month until the election, Rob Sobhani, a twice-failed candidate for the Republican nomination, decided to enter the race as an independent. And he had a war chest of six million dollars to finance his efforts for the remaining weeks of the campaign.

  Sobhani’s entrance into the race was a devastating blow to our efforts to unseat Democratic incumbent Ben Cardin, but we were not knocked completely out. We began the campaign with no infrastructure, money, media presence, or volunteers, and despite nearly insurmountable odds we managed to build a three-thousand-person-strong, statewide grassroots team. We were a fixture on local media channels and made appearances on national cable networks. We were also raising significant amounts of money, out-fund-raising both the incumbent senator and the wealthy independent combined in the closing months of the campaign. With almost two months left in the campaign, we had cut our deficit in the polls in half.

  Adding to the good news was an unexpected endorsement from Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund. I was honored to receive their backing and somewhat surprised at their willingness to invest in me despite the odds stacked against us. The endorsement was a testament to the organization’s priority of principles over cheap politics. Yet despite all of these positive developments, the tide turned quickly when Sobhani poured much of his six-million-dollar campaign fund into a media blitz attacking my candidacy. Having to deal with the onslaught not only from Senator Cardin but now from Sobhani as well was a political Armageddon for the team and for me.

  Although the campaign was realistic about our slim chances at this point, we refused to give in and continued the fight on our turf. We had the strongest grassroots effort and doubled our phone-calling and door-knocking efforts. The best we could hope for at this point was a second-place finish. I felt that if we could at least hold on to the Republican base on Election Day, it would be a testament to the power of raw determination. Our media spend was dwarfed by the competition and I had no political resume to speak of, yet we were still able to get out a clear set of ideas and principles despite the electoral fog of both the presidential election and the negative ads run by the other candidates in my race.

  Election night would be emotionally difficult for me, Paula, Isabel, and the staff. While driving to the hotel ballroom near BWI Airport, which we shared with Congressman Andy Harris, it began to sink in that it was over. We were going to lose, and no amount of passion or desire to change the direction of the country could fix that.

  Paula and I were quiet on the thirty-minute drive, occasionally making small talk about insignificant events to distract ourselves from the pain of losing. We both dedicated our lives and fortunes to this effort and desperately wanted to believe that it had meant something. We knew when we arrived in the work area of the hotel and joined the campaign staff that it was over. My campaign staffers were just as dedicated as my family and I were to the race, and I felt that I owed them better than this. My campaign manager, Jim Gibbons, barely left the office in the final weeks leading up to the election, and Sharon, his deputy, looked as though she had expended every ounce of energy she had within her to bring us to victory. Kelly and Ally, two of my executive staff members, were sources of strength for me and allowed me to vent my feelings during the darker moments in the campaign; they wore looks of disappointment that broke my heart. As the first counties began to report their numbers, the second-place finish became a reality.

  Unfortunately, there are no silver medals in politics. Only one contender is sworn in as a United States senator, only one hand is placed on that Bible in our Capitol, and that hand was not going to be mine. My daughter Isabel was devastated. I simply could not get through to her during the campaign that our chances of winning were remote. She believed in her daddy and no one, including me, was going to convince her otherwise. I picked her up and held her tightly and shed a tear listening to her ask me repeatedly why we lost. It was tough to regain my composure, but I knew I had a job to do that night. I had to call Senator Cardin and congratulate him on his win, and then deliver a concession speech in front of the many supporters, staff, and media outlets assembled in the hotel ballroom.

  My conversation with the now-reelected Senator Cardin was neither awkward nor bitter. We agreed on very little politically but never engaged in any personal attacks and had become friendly while on the campaign trail. He thanked me for running a dignified campaign and said he respected the amount of work I put in and wished me well in the future, and I responded in kind. After ending the phone call, I prepared for the last speech I was ever going to give as Maryland’s 2012 Republican nominee for the US Senate.

  While delivering my concession speech that night, I could see that we had done something special. I looked out at the crowd as I was speaking and did not see many dry eyes. I composed the speech in the hallway just prior to speaking and used a text message I received from a friend earlier that day as inspiration. In that message my good friend Andrew thanked me for the noble effort and asked me to read the Bible passage Timothy 4:7. I kept a miniature Bible in my car and when I opened to the verse, I read, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

  I ended my speech with those words, resolved that I had done the right thing. I chose to trade financial security and a good job for the satisfaction of knowing that when it was time to take a stand and fight back, I did not stand idle.

  It is easy in a country as prospero
us as ours to succumb to the routine of a comfortable middle-class existence. There is a sedating quality to a life where the generational challenges of survival have largely disappeared. We live in a country and at a time where food is abundant, air-conditioned transportation awaits you in your garage, on-demand entertainment is only as far away as your remote control, and relative security in your home is the rule, not the exception. During my time and travels around the world with the Secret Service, the anesthetic of my comfortable life wore off and I became intimately familiar with the harsh realities of life outside our borders. I saw firsthand children with limbs hacked off in Rwanda who were now struggling with unimaginable health problems, Panamanian adults whose aspirations centered on basic survival rather than the American Dream of boundless prosperity, and even a French embassy employee who saw no future in his home country and told me he would do anything to become a US citizen.

  When you see the contrast between our lives here in the US and the lives of citizens in nearly every other country around the world, your passion to defend the ideas that have made us exceptional can only grow. We are living in a political era where foundational American ideas—rule of law, limited government, individual liberty—have come under harsh attack, despite the undeniable prosperity, power, and success that make our country a beacon and example for the rest of the world. If you believe that today is not the best that it is ever going to be, that tomorrow can and will be better, then you need to be willing to fight for it. Fighting for it requires action, not talk. Complaining about the political course of the country may temporarily alleviate some of the frustration associated with an unwanted national decline, but it will not right the ship. If you are not satisfied, you must act. Join your local political club, help register new voters, spread the message using every platform available to you, from social media to your book club. Go to town hall meetings and refuse to be silent. Political silence is always assumed to be complacency and makes you an accomplice to those who are determined to change the fabric of this country and denigrate the principles that made it great.

  But I must warn you: action changes the world, but it also attracts attention, both wanted and unwanted. There are legions of insiders who feed at the trough of the political status quo. These people are parasitic and exist in large numbers on both sides of the political fence. I witnessed this many times while working with the PPD within the walls of the White House. Access is power, and prestige and principles will always take a backseat to the desire for power. I watched scores of politicians, from the local to the national level, sell their souls in order to remain part of the “in” crowd, despite the fact that the cost of admission was selling out a former ally. Do not ever assume the loyalty of a group of politicians who you think are on your side. They will switch allegiance in a heartbeat if they think it will help them gain or retain power.

  Whether you decide to become a candidate for public office or simply get involved politically as a citizen and question those who should be serving the public, be prepared for the onslaught of attacks and negative energy. I was told many times that I was a “troublemaker” and that I “kick too many barking dogs.” Always remember that men and women of character are a direct threat to those politicians who are only in the game for the power. They will do anything to avoid being exposed and will confront you with all their ammunition to silence you. Principled men and women in politics often walk alone in Washington, but they attract legions of dedicated supporters in the real world of grassroots politics. Find these people and get behind them. Only after the people get involved and support the politicians who want to move this country forward—with our founding principles as a stepping-stone—will our government be returned to its rightful owner: you.

  • • • • •

  In recent months, several events have taken place that trouble me. The events themselves have resulted in the deaths of innocent citizens and public servants, which is disturbing in itself, but the media and the administration’s handling of the issues have made the fallout even worse. Honest media coverage of these incidents would have quickly diffused any skepticism or whiff of a cover-up, and ironically, the media suppression of the stories only served to add to the scandal narrative. Some of these issues, like the Fast and Furious scandal and the Benghazi tragedy, involve the kind of complex security and military operations that I experienced throughout my career, and the mistakes are glaring. I can just imagine what is going on behind the scenes, on the secure conference calls and in the situation rooms, where administration staffers are entrenched in spinning their stories. The terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon is another example of a security failure that resulted in the loss of innocent lives. At least in the case of Boston, the administration came forward and labeled the bombing “terror” in the president’s second statement about the attack. There were clearly security breaches that gave these terrorists the ability to move freely within this country and to travel back and forth to Russia without raising any red flags.

  Most people probably feel like they know the facts about these important issues in our nation’s modern history, but I know there is much that is unreported and the mainstream media’s coverage of these issues has been inadequate at best. In the next few chapters we will spotlight these three particularly tragic examples, showing how the growing size of government bureaucracy has led to an environment of detachment, where no one is really responsible, where there is always another layer in an organization to blame for wrongdoing—and where innocent people have died as a result.

  20

  THE REAL SCANDAL OF “FAST AND FURIOUS”

  THE HEROIC AND TRAGIC DEATH of Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry in December of 2010 was the spark that lit the powder keg of a national scandal that continues to burn. The operation, dubbed “Fast and Furious” due to the proclivity of some of the investigative targets for street racing, has been the subject of congressional inquiries, media investigations, internal US government investigations, and public scrutiny, yet the real story of what happened is still unclear.

  There are a number of reasons why the truth has not come to light. The issue of firearms trafficking, unlike trafficking in narcotics or counterfeit documents (something I frequently investigated as a Secret Service agent), involves a web of political interests that even the most skilled political operative would find difficult to untangle. Despite the persistent haze surrounding the case, there are some facts that are clear. I will present what is known, but leave you with the burning question yet to be answered: were Fast and Furious weapons used on US soil, and why did the Department of Justice fail to take preventative measures?

  The operation began in 2009 as a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) investigative effort to stem the unrelenting tide of weapons purchased illegally within the United States and trafficked across the Mexican border. I have investigated cases along with ATF agents, and I can confidently affirm that they are an elite group of men and women, dedicated to service and country. They are up against Mexican drug cartel members who use what are known in law enforcement as “straw buyers” to purchase weapons. A straw buyer is an individual who purchases a weapon on behalf of another person who, for any variety of reasons, is not eligible to purchase the weapon himself.

  The case took a tragic turn and became a national story when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and his four-member BORTAC (Border Patrol Tactical) team came under heavy, unexpected fire after intercepting five illegal border crossers. Agent Terry was fatally wounded in the short but fierce exchange of gunfire and one of the suspects, Manuel Osario Arellanes, was taken into custody, wounded but still alive. Lying next to the body of the fatally wounded Agent Terry were weapons used by the criminals that would be traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company located in Glendale, Arizona. From there the national scandal began to unfold.

  Internal and external politics, election cycles, Department of Justice and ATF conflicts, Second Amendment rights, and petty internal
office squabbles combined in a toxic brew that became the Fast and Furious scandal. In order to explain why I place the blame largely on the Department of Justice and why I believe the death of Brian Terry may not be the last, I will have to clarify the differences between initiating, investigating, and prosecuting crimes at the federal level and at the state and local level. This important distinction is the key to the Fast and Furious case.

  When I was a young police officer with the New York City Police Department, it was not uncommon to witness a street crime while on patrol, arrest the perpetrator, and give a sworn affidavit as to what you witnessed in order to establish probable cause. Probable cause is a legal requirement for any arrest regardless of the jurisdiction. In the NYPD, we witnessed a crime, arrested the suspect, and then gathered the investigative details.

  Establishing probable cause and making an arrest in the federal system usually works in the opposite direction. Federal agents will typically investigate the case thoroughly first, establishing probable cause in the process, then make a phone call to an “intake” assistant United States attorney (AUSA) to determine if he will agree to accept the case for potential prosecution. If the AUSA agrees to prosecute the case in the federal system, arrest warrants will be issued and the suspects will be taken into custody, but not until an overwhelming amount of evidence has already been collected. Very few AUSAs want to take cases that may go to trial, so the bar for acceptance by the attorney is high. Usually the AUSA wants to see enough evidence to force a plea bargain so a trial will not even be considered an option. The politics of justice at the federal level dictate that numbers matter, because numbers can be used by politicians and bureaucrats to further their careers. Falling crime rates are electoral gold and so are successful federal prosecutions. This gives US attorneys much incentive to make sure that they don’t take on a case that they have even the slimmest chance of losing.