“I made my peace with the Secret Service early in ’72,” journalist Hunter Thompson recountedTo High Times magazine in a 1977 interview, “when I went to a party in the Biltmore Hotel here in New York after McGovern’s primary victory, and there were about ten agents in a room. They were clearly passing a joint around. The look on their faces when I walked in there, all of them turning to look when I walked in, it was a wonderful moment of confrontation.”
The idea of Secret Service agents existing as patriotically robotic steely-eyed bullet eaters — despite the best efforts of the movie industry — was exploded a while ago. “Another way to put it,” reports The Atlantic, “is that the Secret Service has been a rolling disaster, with almost too many breaches to keep track of.”
These blunders include grossly inappropriate behavior abroad, drunken foolishness home, a consistent failure to lead, and more than a few disturbing breaches of White House security. It has been terrible, but if there is any truth to the new allegations against the Secret Service, then the entire agency should be torn down and sprinkled with quicklime.
It all started with a reportBy The Intercept detailing how the service “erased text messages from January 5 and January 6, 2021,” the day before and the day of the insurrection attack on the Capitol. According to agency officials, this erasure was part a planned equipment upgrade. AfterOversight officials had directed that all communications from those days should be preserved. The House Select Committee has reviewed the January 6 attack. issued a subpoenaAll deleted texts
Many disturbing pieces began to fall together after the texts were deleted. His Secret Service detail tried getting Mike Pence into a limousine on the day of the attack. “I’m not getting in the car,” Pence replied; he knew that if he left the building, the process of certifying the election would falter, and Pence suspectedSuch an end was the ultimate goal.
“[Pence] uttered what I think are the six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.” committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin saidat a Georgetown appearance. “He knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do.” For its part, the Secret Service has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
The two men in charge of Donald Trump’s public appearances, like the rally held that day, were present and former senior Secret Service agents. Their loyalty to Trump was a fervent one. In fact President Biden was required at his inauguration to join a new security team because the one that had been serving Trump before had become completely politicized.
This train of evidence — incomplete as it presently stands — leads to some truly bleak possibilities. The worst of them would have the Secret Service in cahoots with Trump’s efforts to thwart Pence’s duties that day by removing him from the scene. This scenario was where the plot failed. Text message evidence of the plotters was deleted with an explanation. jumping aroundAs a frog on the hot plate.
Even if none proves true, the agency is still tried to obliterate evidenceThe evidence had been ordered to be preserved by the Select Committee was required by the Select Committee. This scandal is still the worst of all possible outcomes.
Thursday night’s 8 pm hearing could be the last hearing of the Select Committee. A portion of the program is expected to include: minute-by-minute breakdown of Trump’s actions — and specifically, his inactions — over the hours the violence unfolded at the Capitol. Raskin has this Secret Service story in his teeth, however, so don’t be surprised if these allegations receive the airing they deeply deserve.
The story of January 6 is both simple and grim in its core. The story began with a president seemingly not caring about a violent attack against democracy. It has now become a deep plot by that president to deliberately crash presidential elections and bring him back to power, tyrant-like. Now, we are faced with the distinct possibility that the government’s own watchers on the walls may have been at least peripherally involved in the coup attempt.
Dog can only predict what Thursday night will bring.
