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      in Elections

      Threats against US lawmakers rose ahead of 6 January anniversary, agency says

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      Threats against US lawmakers rose ahead of 6 January anniversary, agency saysFBI and DHS flagged content that could ‘inspire violence by lone offenders against government officials’ The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned of an increase in extremist content and threats against US lawmakers in the days leading up to the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.Historians mark 6 January with urgent warning on threats to US democracyRead moreThe memo, sent on Thursday to state and local law enforcement, said that DHS had no indication of a specific and credible plot, but that the agency and the FBI had “identified new content online that could inspire violence, particularly by lone offenders, and could be directed against political and other government officials, including members of Congress, state and local officials, and high-profile members of political parties, including in locations outside of [Washington DC]”.John Cohen, the head of DHS’s office of intelligence and analysis, outlined a range of content on “extremist related platforms” that was concerning.In one instance, an “unknown individual” posted a video online listing 95 members of Congress who, the video claimed, were involved in voting to certify the “fraudulent” presidential election, echoing far-right misinformation that has spread since last year. The video called for the Congress members to be hanged in front of the White House and was posted on a forum that hosts QAnon conspiracy theories and was reposted by Telegram users and on blogs.The video was viewed more than 60,000 times across platforms, the memo said. Cohen also warned of a separate posting that referenced 6 January “as an appropriate day to conduct assassinations against named Democratic political figures, including [the president], because of the perceived fraudulent election”.The US Secret Service, the Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police agencies were aware of the online activity and have initiated investigations “as appropriate”, Cohen wrote in the memo, adding that the Federal Protective Service had also expanded patrols in and around federal facilities across the US. The memo comes amid reports of a sharp rise in threats against lawmakers over the last year.DHS had recently warned that the US was facing a heightened threat environment across the country, as threat actors “continue to exploit online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity”. The agency said it would continue to monitor the uptick in threats in the coming days.After federal authorities were criticized last year for failing to act on warning signs on social media before the 6 January attack, DHS established a new domestic terrorism branch in its intelligence office, which has been focused on expanded tracking of online threats.Earlier on Thursday, Joe Biden denounced Donald Trump for spreading a “web of lies” about the 2020 election and accused Trump and his allies of holding a “dagger at the throat of American democracy”.TopicsUS Capitol attackFBISecret ServiceThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Hundreds of Secret Service Employees Were Infected With the Coronavirus

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      The rigors of protecting a president, a vice president and their families in an election year amid a pandemic placed a heavy burden on the Secret Service, with nearly 900 employees testing positive for the coronavirus, a watchdog group said this week.The group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, faulted former President Donald J. Trump for continuing to hold large campaign rallies, which it said had contributed to the infections.It obtained the Secret Service data from the federal government as part of a public records request under the Freedom of Information Act. The cases were recorded from March 2020 to March of this year, according to the group, but the data did not include details of the assignments of the agent Ts who were infected. The government also did not disclose what percentage of the total number of Secret Service employees had contracted the virus. The employees who tested positive included 477 special agents, 249 members of the uniformed division and 131 staff members working in administrative, professional and technical positions, according to the group. The Secret Service is the main federal law enforcement agency charged with protecting U.S. political leaders, including the president, and the families.“Throughout the pandemic, then-President and Vice President Trump and Pence held large-scale rallies against public health guidelines, and Trump and his family made repeated protected trips to Trump-branded properties which the then-president was making millions of dollars a year from,” the group said on Tuesday in a post on its website. The group also blamed the former president for riding in a vehicle with Secret Service protection while he was under treatment for a coronavirus infection last October, “further putting agents in danger,” it said.Representatives for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday night. A spokeswoman for the Secret Service said in an emailed statement on Wednesday that the agency had distributed masks, gloves and other protective gear to employees and conducted a robust virus-testing program. She added that the agency’s mission “required significant public interaction during a public health crisis” and that it “was fully prepared and staffed to successfully meet these challenges.”Last November, the Secret Service’s uniformed-officer division experienced a coronavirus outbreak, according to several people who were briefed on the matter at the time. The outbreak was at least the fourth to strike the agency since the pandemic began, with at least 30 uniformed Secret Service officers testing positive for the virus over several weeks. About 60 officers had been asked by the agency to go into quarantine.In the final months of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the virus permeated the West Wing. Several of his top aides tested positive, including Hope Hicks, his adviser; Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary; and two of Ms. McEnany’s deputies, Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt.Mr. Trump, who had eschewed wearing masks for months, was sicker with Covid-19 last October than the White House publicly acknowledged at the time, according to several people familiar with his condition. At the time that he was hospitalized, his blood oxygen levels had plunged and officials feared he was on the verge of being placed on a ventilator. More

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      in US Politics

      Zero Fail review: US Secret Service as presidential protectors – and drunken frat boys

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      At times, the US Secret Service has resembled a bunch of pistol-toting frat boys on a taxpayer-funded spring break. In the words of a drunken supervisor speaking to his men in the run-up to a 2012 summit in Cartagena, Colombia: “You don’t know how lucky you are … You are going to fuck your way across the globe.”Disturbingly, the debacle in Colombia was not a one-off, as Carol Leonnig makes clear. Rather, it was the most glaring episode in an accumulation of horribles. Six agents were dismissed, another six disciplined.Leonnig knows of what she writes. She won a Pulitzer for her reporting on security lapses at the Secret Service, including the “Vegas bachelor party” in South America, and was part of the Washington Post team that scored a Pulitzer for its work on Edward Snowden’s war on the National Security Agency.She also worked with Philip Rucker on A Very Stable Genius, one of the better and more informative books on Donald Trump’s time in the White House. Now she delivers her first solo work, Zero Fail. It paints an alarming portrait of those dedicated to protecting the president and offers a comprehensive look at an agency that has seen better days.In 2009, Michaele and Tareq Salahi slipped through White House security, attended a state dinner and met Barack Obama. In 2015, a pair of soused senior agents crashed an official car into the White House complex.There are incidents of shots being fired into the White House, an intruder making it into the building and an agent on Mike Pence’s detail hooking up with a hooker.The Secret Service’s motto? “Worthy of Trust and Confidence.”Leonnig tells of agents taking selfies with Donald Trump’s sleeping grandson. Trump asked their supervisor, “These guys weren’t being pervs, right?”The response: “They were just being idiots.”Zero Fail convincingly argues that the men and women who guard the president, the vice-president and their families are overworked. Leonnig also contends the Secret Service is a victim of mission creep, a buddy system saddled with out-of-date technology, a culture wedded to doing things because that is how they have always been done.When one young agent brought a pair of fresh eyes to the situation, he was dropped. His critique is now the stuff of in-house legend.Once part of the US Treasury, the Secret Service is presently housed within the Department of Homeland Security – a change that ultimately made little difference. Being swallowed by a bureaucratic Frankenstein did not help morale. The Secret Service became another body-part stitched to a cabinet ministry cobbled together in the aftermath of 9/11.A boost to the budget was not sustained. Trump’s persistent travels to Mar-a-Lago left the Secret Service operating on a shoestring.“Trump has set back this agency 10 years,” one former agent who departed during Trump’s tenure confides to Leonnig. “The overall culture and way of doing things took a big step back.”Time has dulled the images of selflessness displayed in Dallas in November 1963 and outside the Capitol Hilton in 1981. Clint Hill threw himself on to President Kennedy’s limousine. Rufus Youngblood Jr used his body to shield Lyndon Johnson. Tim McCarthy took a bullet meant for Ronald Reagan. Jerry Parr bundled the president away.Unwelcome occurrences are not always gamed out. As former agent Jonathan Wackrow puts it: “The policies and procedures of the Secret Service are born out of blood.”When the planes slammed into the World Trade Center, agents removed Dick Cheney from his office but were delayed in delivering the vice-president to a secure location. Chains of command stymied his immediate entry into a designated shelter. That and the lack of a key.In chronicling the heroics, failures and foibles of the Secret Service, Leonnig also opens a window on the families the agents served. Not surprisingly, some fare better than others. The Clintons and Carters trail the Bushes and Reagans.The agents respected and admired George and Barbara Bush. The feeling was mutual. The Bushes “treated the Secret Service agents who protected them and their large brood like part of the extended family – not like ‘the help’.” At Christmas, the Bushes delayed their celebration so agents could be home with their families. The former head of the Bush detail told Leonnig: “That’s why people would do anything for the President and Mrs Bush.”The Clintons stood on the other end of the spectrum. Bill’s priapic adventures were a headache and Hillary came to be loathed. As for Chelsea, Leonnig tells of her cutting short a telephone conversation with a friend as agents arrived.“I’ve got to go,” the youngest Clinton is remembered saying. “The pigs are here.”Reminded that the agents’ job was to “stand between you, your family and a bullet”, Chelsea reportedly responded: “Well, that’s what my mother and father call you.”The story spread. Suffice to say, Hillary’s “foul mouth” didn’t help her standing with those who protected her. Nor for that matter did the Secret Service’s personnel and culture, which leaned conservative and Republican. Bill and Hillary were children of the 60s. Military service and baking cookies were not for them.Whether and how the Secret Service rebounds remains to be seen. In the aftermath of the insurrection of 6 January, “one Secret Service officer called the armed protesters ‘patriots’ seeking to undo an illegitimate election”, according to Zero Fail. The agent also “falsely claimed to her friends that disguised antifa members had started the violence”, a view still held by the former president’s minions. Members of the Trump detail have been reassigned.To rejuvenate the Secret Service, work needs to be done. At a minimum, Leonnig’s book will get people talking and thinking. More

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      in US Politics

      Sorry, try Obama's house: Secret Service barred from using Ivanka Trump's bathrooms

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      The dying days of the Trump administration have been plagued by yet more scandal in the form of riots, Twitter bans and impeachment. Now the Washington Post has added another: water closet gate.
      In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.
      According to the Washington Post the president’s daughter and her top White House adviser spouse have apparently exiled the squad of men and women assigned to keep them from harm’s way from using the toilets in their sprawling Washington DC mansion.
      “Instructed not to use any of the half-dozen bathrooms inside the couple’s house, the Secret Service detail assigned to President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law spent months searching for a reliable restroom to use on the job,” the paper reported, citing neighbors and law enforcement official.
      It quoted one law enforcement official as saying: “It’s the first time I ever heard of a Secret Service detail having to go to these extremes to find a bathroom.”
      It added that Secret Service members in the couple’s detail who were desperate to relieve themselves had resorted to a porta-potty, as well as bathrooms at the homes of Barack Obama and Vice-President Mike Pence.
      The solution to the problem was not a cheap one. Since September 2017, the paper reported, the federal government rented the stricken Secret Service members a basement studio with a bathroom for the purposes of them going to the loo. The cost to taxpayers? Some $3,000 a month.
      A White House spokesperson denied the couple restricted agents from their home. But the Post stuck by its investigative guns, saying: “That account is disputed by a law enforcement official familiar with the situation, who said the agents were kept out at the family’s request.”
      The Post’s story is unlikely to endear Washington citizens – or indeed many other Americans – to Ivanka Trump and her husband as they leave office after four high-profile years in Donald Trump’s administration. Multiple reports have already gleefully detailed the couple’s likely rejection from the New York and Washington DC social circles in which they have previously moved.
      Not that the couple will lack for a place to call home. They have recently bought a $30m plot of land on an exclusive island in Florida nicknamed the Billionaire’s Bunker. More