Tag: Secret Service

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Crime Donald Trump

Trump Could Lose Secret Service Protection And Other Perks Under New Laws

Convicted felon Donald Trump could wind up without any protection from the U.S. Secret Service, along with other perks normally given to former presidents under a new law that would strip those benefits away from any ex-head of state who is convicted of a felony.

Two House Democrats have proposed legislation that would have a major impact on Trump, according to HuffPost.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) introduced one of the bills and said he did so after heading up the House committee that looked at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol.

“I was disappointed in how the president conducted himself as president. He put a lot of people’s lives in danger. So I saw that,” Thompson told HuffPost.

“But more importantly, why would you want to protect a felon?”

Like other ex-presidents, Trump currently receives a security detail provided by American taxpayers, along with a yearly pension of $246,400, and a budget for travel, office space, and staff.

But Thompson’s legislation would disallow Trump from any of those perks because he was found guilty on 34 criminal charges in Manhattan.

Rep. Laura Sanchez (D-CA) is also proposing a bill, named the “No Glory for Hate Act” that would do many of the same things as Thompson’s proposal.

“I first introduced this bill after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Since then, Trump continues to be a threat to our democracy. His behavior and the hatred he spews has become increasingly hostile. This is not someone who belongs back in the White House and certainly not someone who deserves monuments built in his honor,” Sanchez explained.

As you’d expect, Republicans are outraged that Trump might lose his security detail because he’s a criminal, with Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) whining, “You have a member of Congress that actually introduced legislation to take away his Secret Service and his personal security, basically saying that they would like to expose him to physical harm, danger, maybe even assassination.”

Oh well, Andy. As the old saying goes, Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

Categories
GOP Gun Crime Gun Nuts Joe Biden WTF?!

Greene Demands President Biden Give Up Secret Service Protection After Nashville School Shooting

It’s another dark day in the United States, with yet another mass shooting at a school, leaving six dead.

CNN reports from the scene in Nashville:

At least three students and three adults are dead following a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, police said Monday.

“We now know that there are three students who were fatally wounded as well as three adults inside the school. We are working to identify those victims. Including the shooter, a total of seven persons were killed as a result of this morning’s incident at the school,” Don Aaron of the Metro Nashville Police Department said.

Five of the six shooting victims were transported, Aaron said. All those who were shot are dead, he added.

“Three students who were shot are deceased. Three staff members who were shot are deceased,” Aaron told reporters.

After the shooting, President Joe Biden remarked, “We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart. It’s ripping at the very soul of the nation. We have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons.”

But according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), blame for the shooting lies with the president and he should give up his Secret Service protection immediately.

On Twitter, Greene posted this hateful screed:

“My prayers are with the victims and families at the Covenant School in Nashville. Another absolutely horrific needless tragedy. Children and school staff should always be protected the same way politicians, money, precious stones, and gold are protected, but even more so, by good guys with guns. Thank God for good guys with guns and thank God a good guy with a gun killed the evil mentally deranged shooter today. Joe Biden’s gun free school zones have endangered children at schools leaving them as innocent targets of sick horrible disturbed people ever since he worked as a Senator to pass this foolish law. What a fool. What a failure. Gun grabbers like Joe Biden and Democrats should give up their Secret Service protection and put themselves on the same level as our unprotected innocent precious children at school. School shootings should NEVER happen and will end immediately when our nations children are defended the same way Joe Biden is by good guys with guns!!! End this now.”

Of course, the president hasn’t grabbed anyone’s guns and doesn’t want to, either. What he wants is sensible gun reform laws and a ban on assault weapons. We had an assault weapons ban for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004, and the republic didn’t come crashing down during that time.

Greene’s tweet was met with resistance from others on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/davidmweissman/status/1640411588468301826?s=20

Categories
Capitol Insurrection January 6

Deleted Secret Service Texts May Contain Information On Suspected DC Pipe Bomber

Though the story didn’t get nearly as much attention as what transpired on January 6, 2021, a day before the Capitol insurrection which left five people dead, the night before, on January 5, a pipe bomb was planted outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The same person who planted that bomb then proceeded to the Republican National Headquarters and placed one there, too, ABC News notes:

Wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, a pair of Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow Nike logo, a backpack and gloves, the suspect walked through alleyways and equipped with what investigators say were two pipe bombs.

“They would have exploded. They could have exploded,” Steven D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas Tuesday. “They are viable devices that could have gone off and exploded, causing a lot of serious injury or death.”

Oddly, the U.S. Secret Service missed the device when they did a routine sweep of the area in anticipation of Vice President Kamala Harris visiting the DNC headquarters. How did they manage to bungle that when their main job is protecting the president and vice president?

Now, of course, the Secret Service is alleging they cannot locate thousands of text messages sent by agents on both Jan. 5 and 6, which is causing plenty of speculation that the missing texts might just be related to the bomb investigation and/or possible suspects.

Were those pipe bombs missed because someone had targeted Harris? There’s all sorts of knowledgeable people asking that question today.

This entire thing stinks to high heaven and suggests that the Secret Service may be compromised. It’s time to put the agency under the microscope and investigate them until we get to the bottom of this.

Categories
Donald Trump Elections January 6

Secret Service May Be Co-Conspirators In Trump’s Election Coup Crimes

We learned this week that the United States Secret Service may have deleted thousands of text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, raising questions about whether or not the agency tasked with protecting the president might be complicit in the illegal plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election and allow Donald Trump to remain in office.

NBC News reports that the Secret Service denies they destroyed any potential evidence:

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, has called allegations that the agency deleted messages categorically false. During a “pre-planned, three-month system migration,” he said, data on some phones was lost but that none of the text messages being sought was permanently deleted. Guglielmi also insisted that the Secret Service would respond “swiftly to the Committee’s subpoena.”

On Sunday, former impeachment lawyer and White House ethics czar Norm Eisen was a guest on CNN and said the real issue about the text messages is the connections Secret Service agents may have to crimes committed by Trump:

“I think that the questions have a larger significance than just whether texts were lost or not. I’m more concerned that after Cassidy Hutchinson testified, after the blockbuster testimony about Donald Trump’s anger that he couldn’t go to the Capitol, that some in the Secret Service seem to be part of an anonymous whisper campaign disagreeing with her story. Mr. [Anthony] Ornato, Mr. [Bobby] Engel. And then you find out there have been other witnesses who have come forward and pushed back on that, including a member of the MPD. And now we find out that documents may be missing from the critical days of the 5th and the 6th.”

That, Eisen added, suggests that members of Trump’s security detail while he was president could be facing obstruction of justice charges:

“Was there any intentional effort to obstruct justice here as part of Donald Trump’s Secret Service agents being too close to Donald Trump? We don’t know the answer, but that needs to get a hard look from the service, from Congress, and from the Department of Justice.”

Eisen concluded by noting that he expects the Jan. 6 committee will get to the bottom of what happened with the Secret Service, Trump, and any crimes any unusual patterns of behavior, suggesting that would include “the Secret Service agents who may have been a little too close to Mr. Trump. Were they part of an effort to intimidate Cassidy Hutchinson? We need answers on the lost documents and on the behavior of these individuals.”

Categories
Crime Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration WTF?!

Rudy Giuliani Was Given Secret Service Protection On January 6 – Why?

The House select committee investigating what transpired at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 is holding its first public hearing today, and it’s expected most of the testimony will come from police officers serving in the departments that were called to protect the Capitol on that fateful afternoon.

But in the days and weeks yet to come, there will be many more hearings — some public and some held behind closed doors for security reasons — that will widen the scope of inquiry for the committee and hopefully provide us all with more information about what happened that day and how we can prevent such a horrific event from taking place again.

Just Security had two former U.S. Attorneys (Barbara McQuade and Joyce Vance) sit down with Ryan Goodman, who serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of Just Security, and come up with questions that need to be asked by the committee.

At one point in their extensive document, we learn that on the day of the Capitol insurrection, former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was given Secret Service protection, which is highly unusual. That led to these questions:

“Are you aware that Rudy Giuliani received Secret Service Protection on Jan. 6? Were you aware of communications as to whether he should receive Secret Service Protection? What senior U.S. officials were involved in that decision? Were you aware of anyone raising concerns about whether it was appropriate to provide Secret Service protection to someone so far outside the ambit of normal protectees?”

We have this information thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by public advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW):

Giuliani played a key role in the buildup to the Capitol riots, giving a speech with then-President Donald Trump’s blessings in which he urged the crowd:

“Let’s have trial by combat!”

Giuliani will likely be called (or subpoenaed) by the select committee, and considering the fact that he received Secret Service protection on the very same day he basically called for the violent overthrow of the government, he damn well should be.

But why was that protection afforded to him, and who ordered it? Only a few high-ranking White House officials could have made such a request of the Secret Service.

The fact that Giuliani was given such enhanced security suggests that the person or persons who thought that necessary knew in advance that actions were planned which would put him at risk, and that points to a larger conspiracy that may well reach all the way to the Oval Office.

The House select committee has its hands full. But as McQuade and Vance rightly suggest, they shouldn’t be satisfied until they get the answers the American people deserve.