President Joe Biden has been upset over the Secret Service’s handling of text messages that were sought by the House’s January 6 Select committee. So upset in fact that he no longer speaks candidly in front of special agents assigned to his protection detail, according to a new book about the Biden White House, The Independent reports.

Almost from the very beginning of his presidency, Biden became all too aware that “some of” the agents left behind after Donald Trump exited the White House — who were now in charge of protecting him against assassination attempts, still supported the former president. That’s according to author Chris Whipple, in his book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, which is set for release on January 17, 2023.

The Independent secured a copy of the book, which reveals that Biden didn’t trust the agents, adding this attitude is a stark contrast to how Biden felt during his time as Vice President. During that time period, he was quite close to the agents assigned to his detail. Whipple also tells us that another reason for Biden’s concern stems from the increased size of the detail assigned to him. He suggests however that the President shouldn’t have been surprised that there are “MAGA sympathizers” within the agency’s ranks since the Secret Service “is full of white ex-cops from the South who tend to be deeply conservative.”

I’ve lived in the rural South. I’d say Whipple is putting it mildly. And who can blame Biden for being worried, when you consider what “Maga sympathizers” got up to on January 6?

“Surrounded by a new phalanx of strangers, Biden couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Do these people really want me here?’” Whipple writes.

It also didn’t help that Biden’s trust in the agency was further shaken during an incident that happened in March 2021 that involved a Secret Service agent and Major, his three-year-old German Shepherd.

Biden adopted Major from the Delaware Humane Association in 2018, and he became the first rescue dog to become First Canine. But after the alleged biting incident occurred in the private residence portion of the White House on March 8, 2021, he was temporarily relocated to Delaware for training. After his return to the White House, Major allegedly bit a National Park employee at the end of that month.

Whipple writes that Biden is skeptical about the details of the first purported incident. He notes that although no one argues that some sort of incident had taken place, Biden “wasn’t buying the details,” especially the alleged location where the biting occurred.

Biden discussed his concerns with a friend as he was giving a tour of the White House residential quarters, Whipple writes. The President purportedly pointed to the alleged location where the biting took place — on the executive mansion’s second floor — and told his friend: “Look, the Secret Service are never up here. It didn’t happen.”

Whipple adds that Biden thought “somebody was lying … about the way the incident had gone down.”

Biden has spent years accompanied by Secret Service agents — first as vice president, then as a candidate and president-elect, and finally as president but when the January 6 attack on the Capitol was incited by Trump, it shook his faith in the agency.

Biden continued to feel the influence of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as “all too close to home — in his Secret Service detail,” Whipple writes. And the agency “looked both incompetent and politicized” thanks to the failure of agents on Trump’s detail to “retain and turn over text messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 — the day before the Capitol attack and the day of the attack itself.”

The Independent also notes:

“It was also one of Mr. Trump’s own appointees — Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari — who had asked agents for the messages, and who had later told Congress that all but a single message had been irretrievably lost, while the Secret Service, ordinarily world-renowned for its technical abilities, claimed the deletions were the result of a ‘migration’ during scheduled mobile device upgrades.”

Biden had to deal with the knowledge that some within Trump’s detail, who were now in Biden’s detail, cheered on the Capitol riot, and with the January 6 Select committee’s revelation that former vice president Mike Pence refused to get in a car with his own protective detail as the attack unfurled out of fear that “they would have taken him away in service of Mr. Trump’s push” to remain in office illegally, Whipple tells us that Biden “wasn’t taking any chances with his bodyguards.”

“Wary of his own Secret Service agents, the president no longer spoke freely in their presence,” Whipple writes.

The Independent contacted the White House for comment on all of this, and a White House official responded that Whipple “did not give us a chance to verify the materials that are attributed here.”

“We respect that there will be no shortage of books written about the administration containing a wide variety of claims,” said a White House spokesperson. “We don’t plan to engage in confirmations or denials when it comes to the specifics of those claims.”

How sad is it when a president has difficulty trusting the agency charged with protecting him? The Trump effect is obviously still widely felt inside the White House. Trump has been gone for nearly two years but his venal presence is still widely felt. The Biden White House seems like a much friendlier place but there’s still an undercurrent of animosity from those who support the previous occupant.

Very sad indeed.