We don’t know how many times it was written, several times by us, that if Trump was still in the White House somehow on January 20th, claiming the election was illegitimate and that he wasn’t leaving, he would be removed by the Secret Service. That is likely still true, but some scary stories are coming out of Carol Leonnig’s new book looking inside the White House: Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.

Notice the “fall” at the end, it’ll play a role.

We have already learned that Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-wife was having an affair with her former agent, which was legal at the time because the agent was no longer assigned to her, still not ideal.  And we’ve learned that there was at least talk (nothing more proven) that Tifanny Trump was spending a lot of personal time with her agent. (Which sounds like it would have been against SS rules but remains unproven, just a lot of personal time, which itself can be an issue.)

Now we read that the Secret Service members around the Trumps didn’t just go MAGA, they went MAQA:

“You know, if the most elite protection agency in the world is questioning whether or not Biden is president, there is a reason to be concerned, at least on the part of the transition advisers about whether he is safe in their arms. At the end of the day, the Secret Service did change many of the supervisors of that detail, many of them to install people that Joe Biden knew from previous eras from when he was vice president so he would have some comfort of the familiar, comfort of people that had protected him in the past and protected Jill Biden in the past,” Leonnig said.

Look, it sounds justifiable to pair the Bidens up with people that knew them and had built some trust. But if any of that change was due to sections of the Secret Service believing that Biden is not the legitimate issue, it is a massive issue for the service itself and time to clean house. We are not saying only “democrats” can be Secret Service members, but we do believe it’s not crazy to say that conspiracy theorists need not apply.

Were that the only problem. Trump made the head of his detail a deputy chief of staff, taking someone who is the least political person in the White House and making him one of the most, and then put him back in the Secret Service! In a conversation with Rachel Maddow, Leonnig said:

“What was the ultimate disposition of the Secret Service official agent who was moved into the Trump White House to take a political role and then moved right back into the secret service as if he could still then play some sort of nonpartisan technocratic role?” Maddow asked.

“I had known something about that story. I had not known that he had moved back to the Secret Service as an assistant director.”

“He’s an assistant director for training. He’s very close to the director, the current director, Jim Murray. At the president’s request, at President Trump’s request, he liked his detail leader so much, Tony Ornato, that he asked him to be almost temporarily assigned on a detail as the deputy White House chief of staff. In that role, the deputy chief of staff and former Secret Service leader was key in clearing the Lafayette Park outside the White House for the June 1 march that the president had to show how tough he was and that he was a law and order president prevailing over the protesters of George Floyd’s murder.

“He — that same deputy White House chief of staff was critical in planning the president’s rallies as covid spiked. And that ultimately led to 300 Secret Service officers and agents that summer either contracting covid or being exposed to covid so they had to quarantine away from their coworkers. It was sort of an amazing thing. It infuriated so many Secret Service alumni because this is an agency that prides itself on objectivity, political independence.

Carol said that many in the Secret Service wore red ties on election day, to show their loyalty.

It was Biden himself, who asked for his former detail. This is scary stuff and directly counter our assumptions. We had assumed that the people who would be most directly opposed to Trump were those who saw him up close, his stupidity, how he treated people, the personal stuff (we cannot believe that the lifelong cheating spouse suddenly stopped when there would be women everywhere, but we have no information on that). Just the Diet Coke service routine would be enough to turn off some people, or how about the ride in the presidential limousine while breathing COVID all over the place? Get rid of the “fatties.” The jerkish behavior to the press and his staff. We won’t speculate on what it was that made them love him beyond all of that…

Yet they still loved him. To the point that they bought into the “Biden is illegitimate” meme. That sounds terrifying enough to do a massive house cleaning, start with those wearing red ties on election day.

Anxiously waiting. My uncle retired as an Assistant Director. He was in the USSS for most of my life. This is not the agency & agents I grew up admiring. While it may be a difficult read, we’re grateful to you & the agents that were brave enough to bring these things to light.

— 🇺🇸🏴‍☠️☠️ (@Cori__P) May 18, 2021

It is scary as hell. Agents risked their careers and livelihoods to tell me these painful secrets. Thank you for watching @Sifill_LDF https://t.co/omxsh2pY1T

— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) May 18, 2021

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak