REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

 DONALD TRUMP’S POLITICS HAS TAINTED A HIGHLY RESPECTED U.S. AGENCY

 

                  … Anthony Ornato was turned to support the president’s politics

 

It will be a long time before U.S. agencies are over the effects of President Trump

 

The deeper we look, the more we can see how much damage has occurred by having someone like Donald Trump as our Commander in Chief.

This time it has to do with one of the most respected agencies in the country.  That being the Secret Service.

The Secret Service is mandated by Congress with two distinct and critical national security missions: protecting the nation's leaders and safeguarding the financial and critical infrastructure of the United States.  The agency was established in 1865, right after the assignation of Abraham Lincoln.  It was established back then for two specific duties.  Not only to protect the nation’s leaders, but the financial infrastructure it refers to was to combat the then-widespread counterfeiting of U.S. currency.

But yes, that highly respected operation that has earned so much positive support is having to perform staff changes in its senior personnel.  The reason is that there are current concerns that some current members were politically aligned with President Trump.

As Biden readies his new administration, the Secret Service plans to bring back to the White House detail a handful of senior agents whom Biden knows well.  That was from their work more than four years ago guarding him and his family when he was vice president.

Staff changes are typical with the arrival of a new president and are designed to increase the trust and comfort the incoming president feels with his protective agents, who often stand by the president’s side during sensitive discussions and private moments.

But the shifts underway occur at a particularly contentious time, as Trump has blamed his reelection loss on unfounded allegations of voter fraud.  Trump has sought to block Biden’s administration from treating Biden as the president-elect. Some in the Secret Service also came under criticism during Trump’s tenure for appearing to embrace his politics.

For instance, some presidential detail members urged other agents and Secret Service officers not to wear masks on presidential trips this year.  This was against the administration’s own public health guidance as the president stupidly felt that wearing masks showed a sign of weakness.

The Secret Service also took the unprecedented step of allowing the former detail leader to leave his job to become a White House political adviser. Anthony Ornato was hired as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff earlier this year.  In that role, he helped coordinate a highly controversial June photo opportunity.  That was when Trump and his cronies, strode defiantly across Lafayette Square to pose with a Bible after the park was forcibly cleared of peaceful protestors..

Deputy Ornato also helped coordinate numerous MAGA rallies across the country during the pandemic.  All per Trump’s wishes. The mass gatherings were blamed for increasing the spread of Covid-19 in some of the communities where the MAGA rallies took place and that eventually left many in the ranks of the Secret Service infected or exposed.

More than 130 Secret Service officers and dozens of Secret Service agents helping to protect the president and vice president either tested positive for the coronavirus in 2020 or they had to quarantine, because of suspected contact with infected co-workers.

Ornato will be leaving the White House, but he is slated to return to the Secret Service to become the assistant director overseeing the agency’s Rowley Training Center. The posting is prestigious, but is fortunately outside of the new president’s immediate protection team.

Meanwhile, some well-respected supervisory agents who worked on the protective detail for Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, during the Obama administration are set to join the presidential protection team come Jan. 20.

That includes Darryl Volpicelli, who will become the second-in-command of President Biden’s detail, and Brian McDonough, who will become a senior detail supervisor.

“It is smart to give the incoming president the comfort of the familiar,” said one former Secret Service executive. “You want him to be with people he knows and trusts, and who also know how he operates.”

Secret Service spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan declined to comment on Ornato’s White House role or the staffing changes, but she said the Secret Service remains true to its apolitical mission.

“The U.S. Secret Service is uniquely authorized to provide protection to designated U.S. and other world leaders and remains steadfastly dedicated to a standard of excellence in those operations, wholly apolitically and unaffiliated with the political parties of protectees,” Milhoan’s statement said. 

The addition of the vice president’s former protective agents to the presidential detail after such a long gap in time is somewhat unusual.  Both Volpicelli and McDonough had moved on to higher supervisory positions since Biden was in the White House. But this is the first time since Richard Nixon’s 1968 victory that a vice president has won the presidential election several years after serving in the White House.

Copyright G. Ater 2020