I was a supervisor for the Secret Service. It has huge problems with the people it hires
The Secret Service doesn’t have a recruiting problem, it has a hiring problem — how woke, DEI hiring practices have destroyed the world’s most enigmatic and foremost protective agency.
Again, the U.S. Secret Service finds itself in the news and again, it’s another issue involving one of its employees. Embarrassing, yes, but the bigger problem is that when it involves the Secret Service there is a thin line between embarrassing and someone actually getting killed.
On March 27, it was reported that a Secret Service agent assigned to the detail of former first lady "Dr." Jill Biden claimed that his weapon had fallen out of its holster and discharged itself. The agent reportedly shot himself in the leg and was hospitalized.
Even more remarkable is how little coverage this incident received — partly due to the ever-changing news cycle, partly due to the media and the public becoming less surprised by the downward spiral that the Secret Service has been mired in. One of the most-storied and enigmatic, if not the premier protective agency in the world, is unraveling before the eyes of the public and no one seems to care.
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As quickly as this story vanished, it was replaced with one involving yet another Secret Service employee. On April 8, court documents surfaced indicating that an agent-trainee had been arrested after he was caught spying on his fellow agent-trainee roommate while both were attending Secret Service training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
Allegedly, this trainee used a hidden camera secreted inside a cellphone charger to spy on and engage in a weeks-long campaign of harassment and cyber-stalking of the roommate. The trainee was reportedly able to surreptitiously watch as his roommate walked throughout his suite, including the bathroom. The trainee was arrested and charged with unlawful eavesdropping and surveillance.
The Secret Service was forced to issue a statement. Deputy Director Matt Quinn said, in part, "the charges are deeply troubling and raise significant concerns about the individual's character and fitness to serve." More troubling is that this individual had been a civilian employee of the Secret Service in which his job was to monitor and assess threats to the president.
These two recent incidents raise the question, "What the hell is going on with the Secret Service and the people that it is hiring?"
The hiring process for an agent is lengthy — there are multiple interviews, an intrusive polygraph exam, a physical exam and the most comprehensive background investigation that anyone can undergo by the federal government before receiving a job offer and the Top Secret clearance that goes along with the position; a year’s wait is not uncommon.
Somehow, in spite of this process, there have been way too many people who have managed to secure a slot and ultimately achieve the position of special agent; people who somehow were hired yet have no business being in that position.
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I contend that it is the model that the leadership of the Secret Service has chosen to follow, pushed heavily during the Biden administration, which has crushed this once vaunted agency. Wokeness, optics, appeasement of minority groups and DEI hiring practices replaced common sense, negated the purposes of the agency and broke every rule of successful business practice.
The Secret Service has now been thrown into a quandary that will take at least a generation to fix. The unqualified applicants who should never have been hired to begin with are ascending the ranks to leadership positions that they are equally unqualified for, assuming these critical positions out of necessity due to astronomical levels of attrition, continued DEI practices (which continue under this Trump appointed director), and ineffective leadership not willing to engage and shut this nonsense down. So, the loop is now running in a very public way with the world watching.
Don't fool yourselves either, it isn't just the typical international terror groups that we can all name, it’s much worse. It’s the next Thomas Crooks or Ryan Routh, even the (as of yet) unnamed activist group egged on by woke liberal elected officials combined with an outspoken anti-Trump judiciary and ultra-biased media. It’s people who have taken note of the high-profile failures and very public display of ineptitude, incompetence, lack of focus and an outright inability to do the job of the Secret Service who might now seize the opportunity to harm the president.
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Is the president safe? Certainly not as safe as he can or should be. A huge part of the ability of the Secret Service to provide complete protection to any protectee is perception — the perception that this agency and its employees will do whatever they need to ensure not just the safety of the president but the continuity of the United States government, going to whatever lengths are necessary to successfully complete the mission, paying ridiculously high levels of attention to detail and building upon critical foundational aspects of advance work toward the goal of ensuring a safe environment not just for the protectees but for the public as well.
It is not overly dramatic to say that when the Secret Service fails, the resulting cascade affects the entire world.
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But this level of focus, motivation and commitment requires not only the best people — it requires the right people. The failures by this agency, the public comments made by some employees and the display of woke ineptitude and disdain have shattered the public's confidence in the abilities of this once untouchable agency to do the job.
For an agency whose mission truly allows for zero failure, they have completely lost focus and show no signs of fixing themselves. If this were a private enterprise, the Secret Service would have shuttered its doors long ago. The Secret Service does not have a recruiting problem — it has a hiring problem.
You want to fix the Secret Service? Clean house of all senior leadership — stop this cycle of woke DEI hiring and promotions. Find the right people, people who understand the magnitude of the job, who are willing and capable to actually do it. Truly restore the search for the "best qualified applicants," uphold physical and training standards, and get the agency back to the foundations that made it great.
This cannot be someone's first-time job, nor can the Secret Service continue to hire every legacy applicant or appease every special-interest group ticking a box for optics’ sake.