Secrets of the Secret Service

by Gary J. Byrne

  In the late 1980s, an investigation began on the White House grounds when groundskeepers began to discover dead squirrels that had been mutilated. All manner of animals from hawks to foxes live in the White House grounds, but the mystery continued until the culprit was discovered to be a UD officer. To keep himself awake, he would use his security booth, his workplace home for eight to twelve hours a day, six to seven days a week, as a trap. He would set bait and one by one coax squirrels inside. Once they entered the booth, he would shut the door and crush them with the bottom of a fire extinguisher, then chuck the carcasses onto the lawn. Once his activities were discovered, he was fired.

  After one officer had a “negligent discharge”—a term for firing one’s weapon by mistake due to not paying the firearm the respect it deserves—a routine investigation ensued that was expected to result in a formal slap on the wrist. Upon inspection of the handgun the investigators discovered the primers on the back of the bullets to be slightly dimpled, the results of light strikes from the revolver’s hammer. It turned out that the officer, exhausted and bored, had been practicing western-style tricks, cocking the hammer of his service pistol. As the habit became more outlandish he got quicker, and each time he would let the hammer down easy and repeat—until the hammer finally got away from his thumb fast enough to hit the primer hard enough and the gun went off. He, too, was let go.

  But agents were no different. One agent, through a mix of stupidity, fatigue, and lack of training, duct taped the backstrap safety on his Uzi submachine gun. His excuse was that he felt it might slow him down if the president were attacked. With the backstrap safety, which served as a drop safety, permanently depressed, it dropped while the agent was inside a military transport plane and the Uzi emptied its entire magazine in the aircraft.

  The driver on First Lady Clinton’s detail, distracted by an argument with his wife, neglected to put his Uzi back in the limo after checking it. It fell into the street as the limo turned to enter the White House complex and was discovered by a very alarmed officer. Another agent had a negligent discharge with his 870 shotgun as he believed that keeping it in the Secret Service’s “gunbox” condition (no round in the chamber, safety off) would slow him down, so he kept the safety off and a round in the chamber. One day, as he grabbed the shotgun, it discharged, putting a large hole in the ground around other people.

  Training matters. Time off matters. Morale matters. Yet the Secret Service’s leadership has a proven track record of neglecting those essentials and then keeping secret all incidents that occur as a result of neglect.

  One officer revealed that each day there are typically thirty posts at the White House that are unfilled due to the manpower shortage. Those thirty shifts have to be covered by officers on overtime or by agents who are not trained to fill those jobs. In the 1990s, if there weren’t at least two extra standbys, it was cause for serious concern and review. But the Secret Service, instead of making its desperation known and tackling the issue by calling for help, keeps its problems secret and, as a result, creates even more problems.

  Even the most basic environment is often in disarray. The Secret Service locker room has continuously been held to be in substandard conditions. The service continually moves the locker room, as it has not found a suitable location in either the Old or the New Executive Office Building. In one area underneath the Old Executive Office Building, the hallway leading to the locker room had so much wiring and conduit added on haphazardly that the ceiling height was lower than six feet and jagged. Officers often cut their heads on the conduit wiring. A fire exit sign that hung at a level of only about five feet, six inches was a notorious culprit. Officers had to hunch over and walk close to one wall, where the ceiling height was manageable. It’s almost unbelievable that basic OSHA and labor safety standards are not being met in the most important buildings in the nation. Another secret of the Secret Service.

  Once in uniform and on duty, after a briefing, officers “push” the officers of the previous shift off so that they can go home or begin working another shift for overtime. That means that if an officer is late for whatever reason, the previous officer has to keep working. Overtime can be issued anytime by the assignments office, and stories abound of officers leaving the locker room and being called right back in for overtime, even on holiday weekends.

  It is clear that the Secret Service does not value a balanced home life for its protectors, despite it being a key element in having focused, well-balanced agents and officers.

  All this explains why the Secret Service, and most especially the Uniformed Division, is using the word “collapse” when talking about its workforce, its attrition, and its employees’ readiness to do their job. This is dangerous and must be turned around, which makes bolstering the Uniformed Division a major focus of Secret Service reform.

  • The UD’s first priority is the White House’s defense. As a temporary measure to ensure the White House’s defense, the leaders of the protective mission need to put their egos aside and consider calling in military police forces until the long-standing White House defense problem is resolved by bringing Uniformed Division staffing numbers up to the level that they need to be to get the job done properly.

  • All UD working areas must meet OSHA standards and labor law requirements.

  • UD management must be split from special agents. Just as UD officers aren’t allowed to work at Secret Service field offices, agents should not be supervising Uniformed Division units. UD should report to UD and agents to agents. The only exception should be during “integrated” temporary details and assignments such as dignitary protection and presidential travel and PPD.

  • The management structure should be trimmed down. The presence of too many middle managers only complicates and bogs down the chain of command. For instance, the UD chief should report directly to the Secret Service director.

  Morality and Cultural Issues in the Secret Service

  Creating a culture in which workers are valued is essential in any workplace, especially when those workers are tasked with a serious national security mission. To combat the Secret Service’s cultural rot, a number of new policies should be implemented.

  • Numerous law enforcement officers and agents have been killed or injured taking part in Secret Service/SSD operations from investigations to protections. Many of them died participating in security efforts that protected the president’s life. At least six motorcycle officers have died while taking part in presidential motorcades. The Secret Service memorial needs to be expanded to include any officer who has died taking part in Secret Service operations, especially thanking and honoring officers who died while protecting the president. They deserve to be honored in equal part or on a separate list for their service and sacrifice to the mission of the Secret Service.

  • For the sake of transparency and the future safety, morale, and security of the service’s protectors and protectees, all suicides, including off duty, must be tracked and made public.

  • For the same reason, all off-duty deaths related to fatigue and stress and other factors related to fulfilling the extremely demanding job need to be tracked and be made public.

  • All officers, operatives, and agents who are seriously wounded “by an instrument of violence” in the line of duty or in the direct act of protection must be tracked and reported. Despite many of these operatives, officers, agents, and employees receiving commendations and medals for valor and sacrifice, the Secret Service has not made this proud part of its legacy known. My friend “Reverend” was injured in a motorcade while protecting the Clintons’ reputations but was never honored because disclosing the details might have damaged the Secret Service “brand.”

  • The Secret Service must reinstate and restore the UD Benefit Fund in keeping with President Truman’s wishes to honor and pay tribute to the officer who died to protect him, Leslie Coffelt. His story needs to be told and its value cherished.

  • The Secret Service leadership expe
cts its employees to treat the service as if it were their first family and their actual spouses and children as if they were a lesser second family. Law enforcement agencies should embrace the modern culture of respecting their workers’ mental and emotional well-being, and the first step in that is to respect the “nuclear family” ideal. It’s not about whether someone is gay or straight, married or single, etc.; it’s about valuing an officer’s, agent’s, or other employee’s right to have a family and a support network. Every Secret Service family serves the mission in its own right, and that needs to be appreciated, not ignored. The mental, emotional, and physical well-being of employees would rise as a result.

  • It should become standard practice for all agencies to create an intranet system whereby oversight can be conducted by frontline agents and officers, who can recommend cost-saving and efficiency solutions. This has become standard operating procedure in many private businesses, and it is only because of ego and incompetence that the Secret Service hasn’t done so. It usually isn’t a good idea to ask a government agency to “create” something new, but a system like this would cut through lots of waste and mismanagement almost immediately.

  • Agents and officers should have to learn their agency’s history. This is a seemingly simple idea, but as the old adage says, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Officers need to learn about Officer Coffelt, just as agents need to read the memoirs of Urbanus Baughman and Mike Reilly.

  Congressional Oversight

  Congress needs to stop finding the fox in the henhouse and then putting the fox in charge of it.

  Congress needs to establish a “carrot-and-stick” plan for agencies across the board to succeed and operate within their budgets and fulfill their goals. Agencies should feel as if they are competing with one another to meet the goals set for them by Congress. If they go over budget or don’t meet the goals outlined by Congress, they should lose power and funding while successful agencies roll over their savings, increase their budget, and can take on new missions. If an agency is losing, it loses. If it’s winning, it wins. It’s that simple, yet the Secret Service has routinely been rewarded for losing catastrophically.

  Each year, directors need to submit performance evaluations and budget reports, including expenditures, to Congress, just as civilians are expected to report and submit their taxes. Incentives and bonuses should be awarded by Congress for agencies that are overachieving, while for agencies that don’t meet basic standards, Congress should freeze their budget, pay, and benefits, bar them from taking on new responsibilities and expanding, and force them to fix whatever problem exists. If an agency’s director does not produce its financials in a suitable and legitimate manner, the director and others responsible within that organization should not be paid their salaries. This incentive/disincentive program should especially be applied to directors and anyone else in the Senior Executive Service (SES) pay scale. If they don’t perform and achieve the goals and milestones they agreed to as part of their position, their retirement and pension would be at risk. If they achieve, they should be rewarded.

  Congress shouldn’t be afraid to legislate specific changes to agencies such as key leadership firings. This hammerlike tactic should be used especially against managers who seek to punish whistle-blowers who report to Congress and those who try to keep criminal personnel on indefinitely so they can retire with full benefits.

  There should be no more “dog-and-pony shows.” Members of Congress should exercise their ability to inspect government facilities and agencies without giving much advance notice. But taxpayer-funded sideshows serve no purpose. Each congressperson should make a habit of interviewing employees at random. That not hard. If anyone wants to find out more about the Secret Service, he or she need only walk over to the White House fence line and chat up an officer. They’re so disgruntled that some will have no problems letting their feelings flow freely. Just as food health inspectors don’t announce their arrival to restaurants in advance, Congress would learn more if its members made surprise checks. If members of Congress want to schedule their arrival, they should give several windows in the calendar during which they may or may not show up unannounced at Secret Service facilities and the training center to observe normal activities. They have every right to bear witness to everything the Secret Service does because that’s what oversight is.

  If need be, whistle-blower protection laws should be strengthened. Right now agencies, especially the Secret Service, are using illegal nondisclosure agreements regardless of legal limitations because they believe that Congress is helpless to stop them. The Secret Service is abusing whistle-blowers, applying a grossly disproportionate level of scrutiny and intimidation to whistle-blowers while simultaneously aiding and clearing agents who commit horrible crimes. Any agency that abuses whistle-blowers should be punished by Congress. If necessary, Congress should mandate the firing of any staffer found to be abusing his or her oversight position by mercilessly intimidating whistle-blowers or allowing criminals on the payroll to hang on in investigative limbo until they retire. Congress needs to allocate an emergency fund for whistle-blowers whom it believes have been wrongfully punished by their agency after speaking to Congress. Congress needs to have a backbone about this issue and stop leaving whistle-blowers high and dry when agencies retaliate against employees who report their concerns and abuses to Congress.

  Here’s how you stop the “old boys’ club,” deep state entrenchment, or agency made-men culture: make a law that caps all federal law enforcement tenure at twenty to twenty-five years with no exceptions. A military service member leaving the service and beginning a new life in federal law enforcement would not count, just as it would not count for someone to transfer the opposite way. No longer can we tolerate Secret Service employees infecting other agencies.

  As mentioned earlier, “double dipping” between agencies should be prohibited. Staff of the Inspector General Office especially should not be “double dippers”; they should be more like the “Untouchables” of cinematic fame. If you want a fresh apple, pick it straight from the tree—straight from training—don’t rehire old timers from the Secret Service, the most “secret” agency with the worst morale, mission performance, and accountability.

  One of the biggest responsibilities for agents and officers, as for any leader, is ensuring that their knowledge and skills are adequately passed on to the next generation. There should be no more petty coveting of positions and setting one’s successor up for failure. Federal law enforcement is a career, not a lifelong lifestyle or welfare system.

  Just as the “Annual Best Places to Work Report” is an incredible indicator of the government’s best and worst agencies, Congress needs to create a governmentwide public report that categorizes the goal fulfillment and success of federal agencies in terms of high, medium, low, and critical. That way Congress and the public would be able to recognize problem agencies as well as agencies that perhaps hold the key to the future. As the Secret Service is annually over budget, doesn’t currently have the ability to evaluate its current spending, has the lowest morale, and is in the midst of an employee exodus, it would be listed as a “critical” poor performer.

  In critical agencies, a director’s pension and benefits, as well as those of assistant and deputy directors, should be performance based. Whenever a poorly performingr director testifies, he or she should no longer do so in a vacuum but should be accompanied by a devil’s advocate, either a whistle-blower or part of an oversight group that can call out the malarkey that has risen to insulting, ludicrous levels.

  A new law should require the agency in charge of presidential protection to report near misses to the president and Congress, just as hospitals have to report near misses to government watchdog groups. Congress needs to establish a law that anytime the Secret Service shuts down a metal detector at an event anytime other than at the end of the event, Congress needs to be notified.

  Likewise, Congress must demand that
it and the public be notified when the Department of Labor or the Office of Management and Budget makes exceptions for critical poor performers such as the Secret Service. The practice of skirting congressional mandates must end. Any waiver for a critically failing agency must be made public and reported to Congress.

  Congress should make a law mandating that all federal agencies create and upload a hierarchy chart that includes every committee, council, board, branch, division, and other groups by similar name, organizing them by the rank of each supervisor’s rank and government pay scale (GS 1 to 15 and SES 5 to -1). By their doing so, watchdog groups, Congress, and the public will be able to see their structures. While normal businesses have a pyramid-shaped hierarchy, with the CEO or director being the point at the top and the frontline employees being the widest portion at the bottom, much of our government agencies have turned into upside-down pyramids in which the management structure far exceeds the number and scope of the frontline agents and officers who actually implement the mission. Graphic representations will help clearly show the fat and bloat.

  The Executive Branch and Presidents of the Future

  While the presidential protectors are learning to live under new rules, there are a few similar rules that should be shared with anyone who might fall under their protection in the future. Think of it as a “never-do list” for protectees. Based on tried-and-failed attempts, it is a commonsense approach to staying alive.

  • Never ride in an open convertible.

  • There are to be no more unplanned “walk-offs,” “rolling the dice” in unscreened crowds on a whim. This means never deviating from your planned walking route, even if it is to shake hands, see a nearby friend, or for any other reason. Don’t do it. It is impossible to guarantee your protection while you are in front of a crowd.