As it happens, I'm currently reading Carol Leonnig's excellent book on the secret service, 'Zero Fail.' Anyone who's surprised by the USSS's behavior relative to 1/6 hasn't been paying attention. The secret service has had a culture of cover-up for decades. Top leadership lied to congress about the sex scandal in Cartagena during the …
As it happens, I'm currently reading Carol Leonnig's excellent book on the secret service, 'Zero Fail.' Anyone who's surprised by the USSS's behavior relative to 1/6 hasn't been paying attention. The secret service has had a culture of cover-up for decades. Top leadership lied to congress about the sex scandal in Cartagena during the Obama administration, they bungled the discovery of an assassination attempt against Obama and then lied about it, etc., etc. They had a history of agents on the president's protective detail becoming too chummy with their principals, which had led to problems with subsequent administrations.
And now the secret service looks like a bunch of Trump loyalists trying to hide damaging evidence against Trump over what happened on 1/6. I recall early in the Biden administration, the president replacing a large number of his detail agents over concerns about their on-going loyalty to Trump. Just last April, agents on the First Lady's detail were caught taking bribes and suspended.
The 1/6 Committee should immediately subpoena every agent on Trump's and his families' protective details, including their work and personal phones. The leadership of the secret service should also be subpoenaed, and DOJ should launch a criminal investigation. Federal records retention isn't negotiable. The law requires it. And the USSS had been served notice by 1/6 Committee to produce the very records they 'accidentally' deleted.
This stinks like 3 day old fish left in the hot summer sun.
Thinking anyone would take the Records Retention requirements seriously when they stood in the background for literally years watching critical information being hidden away in "secret servers", eaten, shredded, defaced, ripped into pieces, flushed down toilets, burned, and boxed up to take home for souvenirs (these are the only acts that came readily to mind) seems to be a tad ingenious. No one has been held accountable yet.
In this case, those records were not only required to be preserved by records retention law, they were also part of a congressional investigation - which makes destroying them obstruction of an official investigation, i.e., a crime.
Exactly. The secret service has a long history of 'losing' information after they've been told to produce them as part of a congressional investigation. I hope the DOJ opens a criminal investigation. This smells like obstruction of justice.
As it happens, I'm currently reading Carol Leonnig's excellent book on the secret service, 'Zero Fail.' Anyone who's surprised by the USSS's behavior relative to 1/6 hasn't been paying attention. The secret service has had a culture of cover-up for decades. Top leadership lied to congress about the sex scandal in Cartagena during the Obama administration, they bungled the discovery of an assassination attempt against Obama and then lied about it, etc., etc. They had a history of agents on the president's protective detail becoming too chummy with their principals, which had led to problems with subsequent administrations.
And now the secret service looks like a bunch of Trump loyalists trying to hide damaging evidence against Trump over what happened on 1/6. I recall early in the Biden administration, the president replacing a large number of his detail agents over concerns about their on-going loyalty to Trump. Just last April, agents on the First Lady's detail were caught taking bribes and suspended.
The 1/6 Committee should immediately subpoena every agent on Trump's and his families' protective details, including their work and personal phones. The leadership of the secret service should also be subpoenaed, and DOJ should launch a criminal investigation. Federal records retention isn't negotiable. The law requires it. And the USSS had been served notice by 1/6 Committee to produce the very records they 'accidentally' deleted.
This stinks like 3 day old fish left in the hot summer sun.
Thinking anyone would take the Records Retention requirements seriously when they stood in the background for literally years watching critical information being hidden away in "secret servers", eaten, shredded, defaced, ripped into pieces, flushed down toilets, burned, and boxed up to take home for souvenirs (these are the only acts that came readily to mind) seems to be a tad ingenious. No one has been held accountable yet.
In this case, those records were not only required to be preserved by records retention law, they were also part of a congressional investigation - which makes destroying them obstruction of an official investigation, i.e., a crime.
The worst thing to ever happen to USSS was to move them from Treasury to DHS.
The move to DHS just gave them more levels of bureaucracy to hide behind.
It also shifted the types of personalities they'd recruit
I can smell it from here.
Exactly. The secret service has a long history of 'losing' information after they've been told to produce them as part of a congressional investigation. I hope the DOJ opens a criminal investigation. This smells like obstruction of justice.