International
Former Secret Service Agent Suggests Agency Has Political Bias Against Trump Following Second Assassination Attempt
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
A former Secret Service agent alleged on Tuesday that political bias has permeated the agency, following a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, during an appearance on Fox News. (Screenshot/Fox News)
A former Secret Service agent alleged on Tuesday that political bias has permeated the agency following a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
In an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” former Secret Service agent Richard Staropoli accused the Secret Service of allowing “personal political feelings to permeate the senior most levels,” and suggested a breakdown in the nonpartisan integrity that the service is mandated to uphold. Staropoli further alleged that bias has trickled down to field agents, potentially compromising their duty to protect.
“He [Trump] describes it as the most dangerous business, a very dangerous business, it shouldn’t be. This is why the Secret Service exists, yet somewhere along the line, they’ve allowed their own personal political feelings to permeate the senior most levels of the Secret Service,” Staropoli told Laura Ingraham. “And that has made its way down to the level of the field agents, the Secret Service is broken. They are not doing their job.”
WATCH:
Trump described campaigning as a “dangerous business” during a Tuesday Town hall in Michigan, according to USA Today. Trump hosted the town hall just days after Secret Service agents foiled an assassination attempt at his Florida golf course on Sunday, which follows a previous attack in July where Trump was wounded and an attendee killed at a Pennsylvania rally.
With a career spanning over two decades, including high-stakes assignments with Presidents Clinton and Bush, Staropoli said he understood the pressures and challenges of the job, however, the recent failures around Trump’s security disturbs him. He argued that the agency should have anticipated the threat at a location Trump frequented.
“The Secret Service with a $4 billion budget and 7 ,000 employees can’t predict and can’t pre-post an event that’s going to happen on a golf course,” he added. “That the president not only owns but has been golfing on every Sunday for the last 20 years.”
Staropoli delved into the details of the first assassination attempt allegedly orchestrated by Thomas Crooks, emphasizing the agency’s missteps throughout the process.
“Let’s add in the fact that you exposed of the body the way too quickly, you contaminated that crime scene and quite simply has any Secret Service agent even interviewed the family what what’s going on here,” he added. “They have left totally unresolved questions and have fed into conspiracy theories that we will be talking about 50 and 60 years from now, this could have all been avoided if the acting director simply would have stepped in front of the cameras right from the outset.”
The Secret Service requested a budget increase from Congress following the second assassination . Amidst negotiations, some lawmakers advocated for more funds while others demanded new leadership.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
armed forces
Top Brass Is On The Run Ahead Of Trump’s Return
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Morgan Murphy
With less than a month to go before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the top brass are already running for cover. This week the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, pledged to cut approximately a dozen general officers from the U.S. Army.
It is a start.
But given the Army is authorized 219 general officers, cutting just 12 is using a scalpel when a machete is in order. At present, the ratio of officers to enlisted personnel stands at an all-time high. During World War II, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Today, we have one for every 1,600.
Right now, the United States has 1.3 million active-duty service members according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. Of those, 885 are flag officers (fun fact: you get your own flag when you make general or admiral, hence the term “flag officer” and “flagship”). In the reserve world, the ratio is even worse. There are 925 general and flag officers and a total reserve force of just 760,499 personnel. That is a flag for every 674 enlisted troops.
The hallways at the Pentagon are filled with a constellation of stars and the legions of staffers who support them. I’ve worked in both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Starting around 2011, the Joint Staff began to surge in scope and power. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the chain of command and simply serves as an advisor to the president, there are a staggering 4,409 people working for the Joint Staff, including 1,400 civilians with an average salary of $196,800 (yes, you read that correctly). The Joint Staff budget for 2025 is estimated by the Department of Defense’s comptroller to be $1.3 billion.
In contrast, the Secretary of Defense — the civilian in charge of running our nation’s military — has a staff of 2,646 civilians and uniformed personnel. The disparity between the two staffs threatens the longstanding American principle of civilian control of the military.
Just look at what happens when civilians in the White House or the Senate dare question the ranks of America’s general class. “Politicizing the military!” critics cry, as if the Commander-in-Chief has no right to question the judgement of generals who botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, bought into the woke ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or oversaw over-budget and behind-schedule weapons systems. Introducing accountability to the general class is not politicizing our nation’s military — it is called leadership.
What most Americans don’t understand is that our top brass is already very political. On any given day in our nation’s Capitol, a casual visitor is likely to run into multiple generals and admirals visiting our elected representatives and their staff. Ostensibly, these “briefs” are about various strategic threats and weapons systems — but everyone on the Hill knows our military leaders are also jockeying for their next assignment or promotion. It’s classic politics
The country witnessed this firsthand with now-retired Gen. Mark Milley. Most Americans were put off by what they saw. Milley brazenly played the Washington spin game, bragging in a Senate Armed Services hearing that he had interviewed with Bob Woodward and a host of other Washington, D.C. reporters.
Woodward later admitted in an interview with CNN that he was flabbergasted by Milley, recalling the chairman hadn’t just said “[Trump] is a problem or we can’t trust him,” but took it to the point of saying, “he is a danger to the country. He is the most dangerous person I know.” Woodward said that Milley’s attitude felt like an assignment editor ordering him, “Do something about this.”
Think on that a moment — an active-duty four star general spoke on the record, disparaging the Commander-in-Chief. Not only did it show rank insubordination and a breach of Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 88, but Milley’s actions represented a grave threat against the Constitution and civilian oversight of the military.
How will it play out now that Trump has returned? Old political hands know that what goes around comes around. Milley’s ham-handed political meddling may very well pave the way for a massive reorganization of flag officers similar to Gen. George C. Marshall’s “plucking board” of 1940. Marshall forced 500 colonels into retirement saying, “You give a good leader very little and he will succeed; you give mediocrity a great deal and they will fail.”
Marshall’s efforts to reorient the War Department to a meritocracy proved prescient when the United States entered World War II less than two years later.
Perhaps it’s time for another plucking board to remind the military brass that it is their civilian bosses who sit at the top of the U.S. chain of command.
Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.
Daily Caller
Former FBI Asst Director Warns Terrorists Are ‘Well Embedded’ In US, Says Alert Should Be ‘Higher’
Chris Swecker on “Anderson Cooper 360” discussing terror threat
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker warned Friday on CNN that terrorists are “well embedded” within the United States, stating the threat level should be “higher” following an attack in Germany.
A 50-year-old Saudi doctor allegedly drove his car into a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany on Friday leaving at least two people dead and nearly 70 injured so far. On “Anderson Cooper 360,” Swecker was asked if he believes there is a potential “threat” to the U.S. as concerns have risen since the “fall of Afghanistan.”
“I think so,” Swecker said. “I mean, we’ve heard FBI Director Chris Wray talk about this in conjunction with the relative ease of getting across the southern border. And, you know, there’s no question that terrorists have come across that border, whether they’re lone terrorists or terrorist cells. And they’re well embedded inside this country.”
WATCH:
“I’ve worked terrorist cases. Hezbollah has always had a presence here. They raise funds here, and they can always be called into action as an active terrorist cell,” Swecker added. “So I think the alert here, especially around Christmas time, is elevated. It probably ought to be higher than what it is right now, because I mentioned that complacency earlier. And I fear that complacency as someone who has a background in this field.”
Concerns over the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the U.S. southern border have raised questions over the vetting process of illegal immigrants entering the country.
On Tuesday United States Border Patrol (USPB) Chief Jason Owens announced in a social post that an unidentified South African national who was “suspected of terror” was arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y. The illegal immigrant had originally been detained in Texas for criminal trespassing but was released due to the “information available at the time.”
In August an estimated 99 individuals on the U.S. terrorist watch list had been released into the country after crossing through the southern border, according to a congressional report. The report found that between fiscal years 2021 and 2023 USBP agents encountered more than 250 illegal migrants on the terrorist watchlist, with nearly 100 of those individuals being later released into the U.S. by the Department of Homeland Security.
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