by Matt Vespa at Townhall
The Secret Service is an agency besieged right now. What happened on July 13 that allowed former President Donald Trump to be shot in Butler, Pennsylvania? How was it that the rooftop overlooking the rally site was left unprotected? Congress wants answers. The American people deserve answers. And this agency has followed a protocol where these crucial questions remain on the table. Thomas Matthew Crooks nearly assassinated Donald Trump that day. And we have received numerous updates—all bad—about the total breakdown of the security situation at the rally.
This Secret Service story from @SusanCrabtree is wild: Agents were admonished for falling asleep while guarding Mar-a-Lago this spring. https://t.co/M7QR07O3dg
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 13, 2024
To make matters worse, RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree has a story about the internal issues within Trump’s Secret Service detail. It’s a lengthy article, but this 60-person team has devolved into a den of reported unprofessionalism and dysfunction. Agents were reportedly caught sleeping on the job at Mar-a-Lago. One member of the team was lost to suicide. The atmosphere could be described as toxic (via RCP):
Trump’s regular detail team, a force of 60 employees – special agents and support staff – has been beset by internal division, long workdays and weeks, and constant stress. Last year, the team lost one of its members to suicide.
Among the allegations are accusations of improper sexual relationships or fraternization within the team, debilitating mental health issues, non-merit-based promotions, conflict of interest issues, unfair retaliation and the creation of inappropriate memes and social media posts.
On May 15, the top two leaders of Trump’s detail sternly dressed down the entire 60-member staff in a virtual meeting, announcing formal investigations into what they argued were serious misconduct violations, several sources in the Secret Service with direct knowledge of the online meeting tell RealClearPolitics.
Sean Curran, the detail leader and top boss of Trump’s regular 60-member protective team, and his deputy, Matthew Piant, complained of “rumors, innuendo and toxicity” among the detail, as well as “selfishness and immaturity.”
They reminded all employees that they had worked to mentor and train them, and, up to this point, had refrained from referring agents and support employees for discipline even though there had been violations that they could have reported to agency headquarters for investigation.
Curran and Piant complained that they were not getting the same treatment in response from the team. Over the last year, the two leaders have been the target of formal complaints, and some members on the team viewed the all-hands lecture as an effort to turn the tables and retaliate on those complaining about their leadership.
Piant spoke first, accusing someone on the detail of stealing from another. But he quickly shifted to harshly condemning an incident in which a teammate took cellphone photos of two members of the support staff sleeping in a command post while guarding Mar-a-Lago and circulated those to others on the detail.
Crabtree added that even though some chalked up the sleeping photos as a prank,…
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