dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

EXCLUSIVESecret Service security failures are revealed in damning document, that describes how agents allowed an armed guard with three arrests to ride in an elevator with President Obama 1/2

By JOSH BOSWELL FOR DAILYMAIL.COM PUBLISHED: 09:30 EDT, 22 July 2024 | UPDATED: 10:24 EDT, 22 July 2024

Secret Service failures that may have allowedthe assassination attempt on Donald Trumpwere called out by a congressional watchdog nine years ago. Now that watchdog is calling for the resignation of the agency’s chief, Kimberly Cheatle, on the day she is giving testimony to Congress.

In 2015 the House Oversight Committee published a 438-page damning report on the United States Secret Service (USSS) that described an agency ‘in crisis’* with ‘systemic mismanagement’, chronic underfunding, an ‘extraordinarily inefficient hiring process’ and ‘many employees [who] do not have confidence in agency leadership’.

Report author and former top Oversight staffer Tristan Leavitt, who now runs a whistleblower organization, told DailyMail.com that the Trump shooting showed those same problems persist today. (*anon will post on board next)

‘Almost a decade later, it looks like the Secret Service is suffering from some of the exact same problemsit did 10 years ago,’ said Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight.

‘Whether Director Cheatle resigns or is removed, she should be replaced with a director from outside the agency who can clean shop from top to bottom.

• Leavitt pointed to reports that critical security at last weekend's Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was left to potentially inexperienced or under-trained counter-sniper teams from local police rather than crack Secret Service units, as well as evidence of likely poor communication between local police and USSS.

• Leavitt’s 2015 report highlighted previous stunning failures in presidential security, including officials in 2014 allowing then-POTUS Barack Obama in an elevator with an armed guard with a criminal history of three arrests including shooting at a fleeing vehicle with a child inside.

• The man also later slipped between agents and got inside Obama’s security formation.

• The report detailed a March 2015 incident ‘where two intoxicated senior USSS officials—including a top official on the President’s protective detail—interfered with a crime scene involving a bomb threat just outside the White House grounds.’

‘As bad as those and other details were, they were just symptoms of a much larger breakdown in the USSS,’ Leavitt said. ‘Clearly their leadership hasn’t learned its lessons, and a massive overhaul is still needed.’

• While staying in Cartagena, Colombia, for a presidential visit in April 2012, 13 agents took prostitutes back to their hotel rooms. After the scandal was revealed that month, four agents were fired, five resigned and one retired.

• In September 2014 a veteran with PTSD carrying a knife jumped the White House fence and entered the building’s front door.

• Omar Gonzalez was overpowered by security after her burst through the front door of the White House and got as far the executive mansion's East Room.

• An investigation found outer perimeter security failed to communicate effectively with agents inside, and then-Secret Service director Julia Pierson resigned the following month.

• Leavitt’s 2015 report, written after a yearlong investigation, said it was ‘abundantly clear that USSS is in crisis’.

• ‘As USSS’s mission has grown, its workforce has had to do more with less. USSS is experiencing a staffing crisis that poses perhaps the greatest threat to the agency,’ the report said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13644169/Secret-Service-security-failures-armed-guard-arrests-elevator-Barack-Obama.html

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It blamed in part an ‘extraordinarilyinefficient hiring process which overburdens the Secret Service with low-quality applicants’and said ‘personnel who remain are significantly overworked, and morale is at an all-time low’, as ‘many employees do not have confidence in agency leadership’.

It advised dropping the Secret Service’s other duties including cyber and financial crime probes to focus on protection of top politicians.

‘We were told in 2015 that internal recommendations from the 1990s hadn’t even been fully implemented due to willful USSS blindness,’ Leavitt said in a post on social media site X.

‘Fundamentally, the Secret Service likely needs to be restructured. Mission creep has added collateral missions like cyber investigations and other nonessential duties that distract from its #1 job: keeping current, former, and future leaders of the free world safe from harm.’

On Sunday the Washington Post reported messages between former USSS officers, with one asking ‘How the f*** did he get a gun that close’ and the other replying ‘resources’.

A source briefed on the security planning for the Butler Farm Trump rally told DailyMail.com that whereasUSSS would normally have three or four counter-sniper teams for such an event, they only had two, and were relying on local law enforcement due to staffing shortages.

In an interview with ABC News, USSS director Cheatle gave a baffling explanation for heragency’s failure to cover the building the would-be assassin climbed. ‘That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point.And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,’ she said. ‘And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.’

Other reporting suggests there may have been afailure in communication between local police and the Service.

Local station WPXI reported that gunman ThomasCrooks, 20, was spotted and photographed by snipers 30 minutes before he fired, according to law enforcement sources, and that theysent the picturesto Beaver County Emergency Services Unit control center.It is unclear whether the center passed that information to USSS agents at the site.

Videos shared on social media show attendees at the rally spotting Crooks and calling out for help from police over a minute before the shooting.

On Sunday President Joe Biden said he asked USSS to review ‘all security measures’ for last week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and to conduct an ‘independent review’ of the security at Trump's fatal rally.

New York Democrat House member Ritchie Torres and Republican colleague Michael Lawler are introducing a bill to give enhanced protection to all presidential candidates including independent Robert F Kennedy Jr.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13644169/Secret-Service-security-failures-armed-guard-arrests-elevator-Barack-Obama.html

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‘Almost a decade later, it looks like the Secret Service is suffering from some of the exact same problems it did 10 years ago,’ said Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight.

‘We were told in 2015 that internal recommendations from the 1990s hadn’t even been fully implemented due to willful USSS blindness,’ Leavitt said in a post on social media site X. ‘Fundamentally, theSecret Service likely needs to be restructured. Mission creepPDF REPORT TOO LARGE, USE THIS LINK TO DOWNLOAD.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oversight-USSS-Report.pdf

2015 USSS report of Agency in Crisis report attached

Press ReleasePublished: Dec 3, 2015

Bipartisan Report on Secret Service Reveals an Agency in Crisis New details on misconduct and security lapses emerge 1/3

Today, after a year-long investigation of the United States Secret Service (USSS), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), released a bipartisan report detailing the Committee’s findings into the troubled agency. The report highlights serious leadership and staffing concerns, along with new details surrounding employee misconduct and security breach incidents.

Chairman Chaffetz released the following statement regarding the report:

“This report reveals that the Secret Service is in crisis. Morale is down, attrition is up, misconduct continues and security breaches persist. Yet its mission inexplicably continues to expand beyond the zero-fail mission to protect the President. We are now three Directors in from the shocking misconduct in Cartagena and the agency is still broken.

Strong leadership from the top is required to fix the systemic mismanagement within the agency and to restore it to its former prestige. I thank Ranking Member Cummings for working in a bipartisan fashion during this investigation.

We will continue to work together to encourage significant reform throughout the agency.”

Ranking Member Cummings issued this statement:

“I thank the Chairman for his bipartisan approach to this investigation and for his dedicated efforts to bring significant improvements to the Secret Service. I care deeply about the safety of the President, his family, and all of the other individuals under Secret Service protection, and I also care deeply about this agency and its dedicated employees, who are among the most elite law enforcement personnel in the world. This report outlines key recommendations for the Secret Service to continue making significant reforms it began over the last few years. In addition, this bipartisan report warns that Congress cannot make some of the biggest budget cuts in the history of the Secret Service and expect no repercussions to the agency’s staffing and its critical mission. Reversing these problematic trends will require bipartisan and creative work by both the agency and Congress to ensure that the Secret Service is the lean, effective, and respected organization we know it must be.”

Background:

The Oversight Committee began investigating USSS in 2014 after a man jumped the White House fence, making it inside the White House before being stopped. Shortly after the incident then-Director Pierson testified before the Committee where she provided inaccurate information to members. She resigned shortly thereafter. In 2015, the Oversight Committee continued its bipartisan investigation which included four hearings, 17 joint letters, three subpoenas, and eight depositions/transcribed interviews.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/bipartisan-report-on-secret-service-reveals-an-agency-in-crisis/

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2/3 Summary of Report Findings

Click here to view the report https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oversight-USSS-Report.pdf

The Committee investigated four incidents in detail to identify findings and recommendations for this report.

• November 11, 2011, an individual fired several shots at the White House from a semiautomatic rifle. (p. 22)

• April 2012 misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia. (p. 27)

• September 16, 2014, an armed contract security guard with a violent arrest history rode in an elevator with President Obama and later breached the President’s security formation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. (p. 39)

• March 4, 2015, two intoxicated senior USSS officials—including a top official on the President’s protective detail—interfered with a crime scene involving a bomb threat just outside the White House grounds. (p. 54)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED DETAILS

Cartagena: April 2012

• Email exchanges between agents show the brazen attitude of those engaged in misconduct. (pg. 30)

• Sensitive security equipment and documents were left unsecured in agents’ rooms. (pg. 30 – 34)

• Then–Director Sullivan provided inaccurate testimony to Congress. (pg. 30 – 34)

CDC incident: September 2014 (pg. 39 – 42)

• The President’s security was breached at least three times at the CDC.

• USSS failed to conduct background checks on CDC’s security guards, all of whom were armed. (p. 40)

• USSS allowed unvetted armed guards near the President.

• USSS provided incomplete information to Congress.

• USSS improperly pinned unvetted armed guards.

• USSS allowed the President to enter an elevator with an unpinned individual.

• USSS initially blamed the CDC after an insufficient review of the incident.

• The armed security guard stationed in the elevator had a criminal history with three arrests for misdemeanors, including reckless conduct with a weapon which involved a three-year-old. (pg. 43 – 44)

https://oversight.house.gov/release/bipartisan-report-on-secret-service-reveals-an-agency-in-crisis/

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Three Directors in a row have provided inaccurate information to Congress

• Sullivan – after Cartagena said misconduct was not a cultural problem; that agents involved had not been involved in previous similar misconduct; and that there were no sensitive documents/equipment in hotel rooms. (pg. 30 – 34)

• Pierson – said she updated the President 100% of time. (pg. 49)

• Clancy – re: CDC incident, said there were no other armed guards near President and sent letter to OGR saying that USSS first learned guard was armed after interviewing him, but CDC actually informed USSS that guards would be armed 4 days prior to visit (pg. 43 – 44)

REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS:

Staffing

• Congress should ensure that USSS has sufficient funds to restore staffing to required levels, and USSS should ensure that it has systems in place to achieve these goals. (p. 122)

Security Clearances

• USSS must adequately staff the Security Clearance Division. (p. 157)

• USSS should allow at least as much time as the 114-day ODNI timeline for issuing security clearances. (p. 162)

• USSS should not present applicants to the hiring panel until FBI background checks have been completed. (p. 168)

• USSS’s Security Clearance Division should participate in all hiring decisions to ensure the importance of national security. (p. 169)

Reconsideration of Mission

• The Executive Branch should conduct an interagency review on USSS’s collateral or non-essential missions that can be shed, and submit a report to Congress on its findings. (p. 194)