Book: Zero Fail

New book, published yesterday (delivered to me today), author interviewed on Rachel Wednesday.

All about the Secret Service, and their mission to protect the President and VP and a few others. Apparently... a bunch of current Secret Service agents, tasked with protecting Biden, were posting online supporting the January 6th insurrection. Apparently... the current deputy head of the SS used to work for Trump, setting up MAGA rallies. Apparently... many of the currently-serving agents do not believe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.

Should make interesting reading.

Halfway through. Very readable.

The author is going chronologically, and Bill Clinton just succeeded George H.W. Bush. Bush was beloved by the Secret Service because he knew all their names, asked about their children, and Bar handed out leftover sandwiches and coffee after an event.

Clinton not so much. Agents learned early on that Bill's daily jogs to the YMCA weren't to work out, as he claimed, but to have romantic trysts. Agents weren't allowed inside the facility. Soon they were barred from the second floor of the White House, the residential area, because spats between Bill and Hill kept showing up anonymously in the gossip rags. The agents who loved George were ratting on Bill.

He cleaned house and fired the whole detail. That was a first -- and didn't win him any friends.

Obama got a Secret Service detail 18 months before the election, 12 months before he was even the candidate, due to the flood of KKK-related death threats.  That was more than a year earlier than any candidate before him.  

It cost taxpayers $300,000/day.

After his election the death threats skyrocketed to thirty a day.

Michelle was the first First Lady to get a Counter-Assault Detail.

Hookergate.  Eleven agents on advance detail preparing for Obama's arrival in Colombia were caught with hookers and booze.  Prostitution is legal in Colombia -- even using U.S. taxpayer money to do it -- but refusing to pay for services rendered the next morning gets the local cops called.

There were all recalled to Washington and given the opportunity to resign, despite twenty years of service.  Most took the offer.  A few bluffed that their transgressions were minor and common in the Service -- despite most of them being married -- and one of them tried to blackmail the director with other agents' (and supervisors) histories. Apparently... one night stands with foreign nationals were SOP, whether paid for or not.

From supervisors on down.  

A Secret Service senior manager wrote:

You guys don't know how lucky you are. You are going to fuck your way across the globe.

The head of Obama's security detail committed suicide when faced with discipline over his Mexican mistress.  Turned out he had a secret life with a dozen women in a dozen different countries.

Thirty-two agents refused to be interviewed for the resulting investigation. It wasn't until Obama promoted a senior woman agent to run the Secret Service that changes began to be made.

Obama's choice run the Service was soon torpedoed by anonymous leaks within the agency.  The "good ol' boys" network did not take kindly to a female boss.

Early in the Trump years, a Denver senior supervisor named Kerry O'Grady posted some negative things about Trump on her Facebook page.  She was horrified by his "pussy" comment and his general boorishness.  In retaliation Trump's team, along with like-minded agents within the Service, engineered O'Grady's ouster, despite 23 years of service.  Among the things she was accused of was unauthorized speaking to the press.

Her job was as the designated public spokesman for Denver.

Her lawyer sued to have discovery over any correspondence between the White House and the Secret Service about her.

Their response was to offer her a generous taxpayer-funded (but undisclosed) early retirement package, along with an NDA.

The Secret Service budget blew up during the Trump years.  Not only did they have to give 24/7 multi-agent protection to Trump and his extended family, but also to several cabinet secretaries, eighteen people in all, three times their normal detail.

On top of that, all the agents were REQUIRED to stay at Trump properties and pay up to $1800/night each, paid directly to the Trump Organization.  Taxpayer money.  Each trip to Mar-A-Lago cost taxpayers $3.4 million, which he did over 500 times during his one term.  

If you do the math, that's $1.7 BILLION dollars.

Vanessa Trump, Don Jr.'s estranged wife, began an affair with her Secret Service agent.

Tiffany Trump, the daughter DJT never talks about, had a steamy sexual affair with HER Secret Service agent before he was "transferred to a field office."

DJT, that 2-ton tub o' lard, also insisted that any agent even slightly overweight be removed from his detail.

Agents as a whole HATED Hillary and many of them actively worked to derail her election chances.

The Secret Service had to have more than two dozen custom golf carts designed and built, with enough horsepower to run down an intruder and storage for high powered rifles.

Agents were required to accompany Trump on his approximately 650 trips to one of his golf courses (the exact number is classified). The custom golf carts had to be flown to wherever Trump visted a course.

Recent estimates place the taxpayer expense of Trump's golf outings at $141,000,000.

Two-and-a-half months into his presidency, the candidate who said he'd be "too busy working for you" to leave the White House was on track to take 10x as many golf trips as Obama, and bill the taxpayers 12x as much for travel.

The annual elevator inspection at Trump Tower was billed to the Secret Service as a security measure after he was in office. Taxpayers picked up the $64,000 bill.

Trump's 500-acre golf course in Bedminster NJ was given a "farmland exemption" from property taxes because Trump kept a few goats on the property.

The Secret Service spent $26 million on security upgrades to Trump Tower. Roughly one-quarter of that, $6.3 million, went directly to the Trump Organization.

You know, I don't envy Letitia James.

During 2020 roughly three hundred Secret Service agents came down with COVID due to Trump's superspeader events and his refusal to let anyone around him wear masks.

Trump blocked the Secret Service from providing protection to president-elect Biden, as every president-elect before him had gotten.

Recent revelations about the Secret Service having purposely deleting subpoenaed texts about January 6 reveal an interesting dynamic.

Many SS agents (oh Jesus, I never noticed THAT irony before!) were intensely loyal to DJT.  The head of his detail was even hired away from the SS to become his private aide (a first in history, and of dubious legality).  During the insurrection an unknown number of them -- including apparently management -- were actively working on the insurrectionists' side.

At what point does "protecting the president" become "protecting the man" and not "protecting the Presidency"?  How far can loyalty go?  When your life depends on someone -- when that person is expected to lay down his life for you -- can you require that agents break with their protectee if he breaks the law?

Obama had to fire his entire detail because they weren't loyal.

Trump's detail is turning out to be a little TOO loyal.

And, let's not forget, as an ex-president he still has a full-time detail.