After The Storming Of The White House, Doubts Exist As To The Safety Of The President

President Trump no longer safe in White House: Former Secret Service agent

By Malia Zimmerman

 Published March 17, 2017

 FoxNews.com

Facebook Twitter livefyre Email Print

The president is no longer safe on the White House grounds, according to former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, who once guarded presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Bongino made the stunning assessment in an interview Friday with Fox News. It followed an incident last Friday night when a man jumped the White House fence and may have roamed the property for as long as 15 minutes before he was stopped by the Secret Service.

Jonathan Tran, who carried two cans of mace, set off multiple alarms, Bongino said, and was even spotted by Secret Service officers, but was still able to come within “close proximity” of the White House and even reportedly “jiggled the door” to the executive mansion.

“The intruder set off multiple alarms, alarms that clearly showed someone breached the property, and he was seen by officers who didn't think anything of it. This is a big story,” Bongino told Fox News.

Expand / Contract

President Donald Trump (AP)

“That just shows the president is not safe there - in the White House. The Secret Service does not have the assets, they don't have personnel on the ground they need to keep him safe.”

Should a group of terrorists decide to storm the White House, the Secret Service would not be able to protect Trump, Bongino predicted.

“The Secret Service cannot even keep one person off the grounds - what will they do if 40 terrorists charge the White House?” he asked. “And believe me the terrorists are already thinking about that.”

According to the Secret Service, Tran was charged with entering a restricted building and carrying a dangerous weapon.

Trump, who was on the property, has praised the Secret Service for doing a “fantastic job” and said the suspect was “troubled.”

But Bongino said the current Secret Service management “sucks.”

“The Secret Service is stuck in their ways and don't want to redo and upgrade the White House security plan. President Trump won't be safe there until they do,” Bongino said.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also blasted the latest incident and said “this keeps happening.” Chaffetz’s panel oversees the Secret Service.

He added, “Our information is incomplete at best.”

In a letter to acting Secret Service Director Bill Callahan, Chaffetz said Tran “may have attempted entry into the building. If true, these allegations raise questions about whether the agency’s security protocols are adequate.”

Chaffetz suggested there may have been alarms that were ignored by the Secret Service.

Chaffetz wants a briefing by the end of next week. He also is asking for all video from the White House grounds that night as well as logs from the Joint Operations Center and information about “alarms” at the White House.

The episode recalled another in September 2014, when Omar Gonzales penetrated the White House grounds and actually made it inside. Then-Secret Service Director Julia Pierson afterward conceded “mistakes were made.” But the Secret Service was found to have publicly lied about how far Gonzales made it into the White House.

It cost Pierson her job.

They later found the White House alarms had been muted in the Gonzales incident.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report. 

Secret Service Breach Of Civil Rights In Nashville. If This Is The Way The Service Works, It Should Be Dissolved.

VIDEO: Secret Service Agents Try to Enter a Man’s House with a FAKE Search Warrant

October 16, 2014 By Greg Campbell

There is a legal method by which law enforcement can barge into our homes; it is called a search warrant. We, as Americans, do not have an absolute right to privacy in all instances; law enforcement officers must go to a judge and demonstrate probable cause in order to intrude upon a private citizen’s life and home. When that burden has been met, police may proceed.

 

It’s a simple concept with many nuances. However, what police aren’t allowed to do is enter a premises without permission from the occupant or the judicial branch. And they sure as heck aren’t allowed to fake a search warrant.

However, that is, reportedly, exactly what the Secret Service sought to do in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson, Secret Service agents were recently thwarted in an attempt to enter the house of a man suspected of making inappropriate comments online about President Obama. When the man knew his rights and refused the agents entry, they turned to the police chief and asked him to fake a search warrant.

When Secret Service agents working out of the Nashville office asked to enter the premises of a man accused of making inappropriate comments online about Barack Obama, the man refused and slammed the door in his face. The agents then called local law enforcement for back-up. The Nashville Police arrived and informed the agents that the man inside, who may or may not have been armed, is a registered gun owner, had not broken any laws, and that they would need a search warrant to investigate inside the house.

According to Chief Anderson in a scathing letter to the House Committee on Oversight, “one of the agents then asked a [Nashville police] sergeant to ‘wave a piece of paper’ in an apparent effort to dupe the resident into thinking that they indeed had a warrant.”

Apparently, Nashville’s finest takes their oaths seriously and plainly refused to do anything of the sort.

However, Chief Anderson demanded accountability. He contacted then-Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and Assistant Director A.T. Smith in order to get answers. Pierson never got back to him and Smith offered a snide tone and told Anderson to, essentially, mind his own business.

Chief Anderson then went to the Secret Service office and demanded answers. In his letter to the House Committee, Anderson writes, 

“Certainly, nothing was resolved in our meeting. The supervisor made it clear that my complaint was not well received. Seeing that was not going to receive any assurance that similar conduct would not occur again in the future, I asked the following questions:

Do you think it is appropriate to wave a piece of paper in the air and tell him you have a warrant when you do not have a warrant?

Answer: ‘Don’t know. l’m not a lawyer.’

If it is a good idea to wave the paper in the air and tell him it is a warrant, why didn’t your agent do it instead of directing a Metropolitan Nashville police officer to wave the paper?

Answer: ‘Wasn’t there. You will have to ask him.’” 

These reports are simply outrageous and indicative of the kind of attitude that has become commonplace within the federal law enforcement environment.

As the NSA, the IRS and the CIA continue to tap, bug, investigate and harass any citizens they want for a wide variety of obscene reasons, it seems clear why trust in the federal government has plunged so low.

If there is to be any silver lining in this story, it is that it serves as a refreshing reminder that while so many police officers and federal agents feel that it is acceptable to betray their oaths to protect and serve, there remains dedicated officers to whom their oaths are a bond.

White House Protects Its Own, Throws Others, Including Secret Service, To The Wolves

Ex-Secret Service Agent: Administration Protects 'the Crown'

Thursday, 09 Oct 2014 05:58 PM

By Cathy Burke

Share:

  Get Short Link |

  Email Article |

  Comment  |

   Contact Us  |

  Print  

|  A   A  

• 0
  inShare

A former Secret Service agent slammed the Obama administration Thursday for a "protect the crown approach" during a 2012 Colombia prostitution scandal — yet "readily throws … the people who would protect [the president] with their lives under the bus."

Don Bongino, a Republican candidate for Congress in Maryland, told "The Real Story"on the Fox News Channel "everybody on the ground knew there was a White House staff member involved" in a hooker scandal that rocked the Secret Service two years ago.

Video of his interview was posted by Breitbart.

According to a bombshell report in The Washington Post, the lead investigator into the scandal told Senate staffers he was asked to withhold evidence and stall the report on the embarrassing scandal for political reasons.

"We were directed at the time ... to delay the report of the investigation until after the 2012 election," David Nieland, the lead investigator for the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general’s office, told Senate staffers, according to The Post.

Bongino was outraged, noting recent security breaches at the White House ended with the resignation of the Secret Service Director Julia Pierson.

"Listen, this is a protect-the-crown approach by this administration, and it has been, frankly, a grotesque pattern of behavior … [the administration] so readily throws the rank-and-file members of the government, including the people who would protect him with their lives, under the bus," he said.

And "they will protect the crown no matter what."

The Obama administration denied any coverup. 

But The Post reported the White House then-counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was twice given the information about allegations involving a member of the White House advance team in Colombia who partied with a prostitute, and that “each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong.”

Nearly two dozen Secret Service and military personnel who were assigned to protecting the president were disciplined for the embarrassing disclosure, though there was no reprimand for the White House aide.

"The Secret Service agents, and you can argue about the punishment too harsh, too lenient, that’s fine," Bongino said. "I had friends and family involved in this. It's a sensitive topic for me. But these guys' lives are over. It's done. It's finished. They were humiliated in public. Some of their wives have left them. They've lost their homes.

"Yet, the White House staffer in this gets promoted for, what, women's studies or women's issues while there's supposedly a war on women… Here's a question … that the White House someone needs to ask. Was this [White House aide] polygraphed? Cause every Secret Service agent was. And if he wasn't and you’re just taking his word for it, why wasn't the same courtesy given to the agents? This is unbelievable."

Bongino also told "The Real Story" authority over the Secret Service should "absolutely" be transferred back to the Treasury Department because “the Department of Homeland Security shift has been a disaster, go back to Treasury, they left the Secret Service alone to operate on a budget that was only about two-thirds of what it is now."

Related Stories:

• Secret Service Prostitution Scandal: Was There a White House Coverup?
• Ex-Shin Bet Dir. to Secret Service: Study Your Errors and Improve

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Who Is Responsible For White House Intruder? Should We Be Concerned With Laxness Of Security?

Intruder Ran Deep Into White House

Monday, 29 Sep 2014 11:12 PM

By Greg Richter

Share:

  Get Short Link |

  Email Article |

  Comment  |

   Contact Us  |

  Print  

|  A   A  

• 0
  inShare

The man who jumped the White House fence and entered the building earlier this month was able to make his way farther inside than previously reported, according to new reports Monday.

Iraq War veteran Omar Gonzalez made it not only into the unlocked front entrance of the White House, but was able to overpower a Secret Service agent and ran through a good portion of the main floor, says The Washington Post.

Initial reports indicated Gonzalez was tackled soon after he got inside the White House.

But Gonzalez wasn't stopped until he reached the Green Room, an official told The New York Times.

According to the Post, the knife-wielding Gonzalez ran past a half-flight of stairs leading to the first family's living quarters, then ran into the East Room before being tackled.

The Post reported that an alarm box near the front entrance had been turned off because the usher's office had complained it made too much noise. It reportedly had gone off by accident several times.

Alarm buttons are posted throughout the grounds, and a Secret Service agent can press one whenever someone jumps the fence to alert other agents about the breach. The system is also supposed to alert a guard at the front entrance to lock the front door.

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson has called the breach "unacceptable." She is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tuesday and is expected to face tough questions about the incident as well as other security lapses, including the 2011 shooting of the White House.

The Post said it received more detailed information on Gonzalez's attack from three unidentified sources and whistleblowers to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Ca., who chairs the House Oversight subcommittee on Homeland Security. The New York Times also cited a congressional official it said was familiar with the incident.

Chaffetz told the post that if the "crash boxes" were, in fact, muted to avoid being "disruptive," it shows the problem is not a lack of resources or an insufficient number of checkpoints or barriers.

"The agency needs a solution that goes deeper than more fences and more people," Chaffetz told the Post. "It must examine what message is being sent to the men and women who protect the president when their leader sacrifices security to appease superficial concerns of White House ushers."

Chaffetz told the Times the 2011 shooting incident was "about as bungled as could possibly be," and said lawmakers have received other reports of security breaches that have yet to be made public.

"She’s got a lot to answer for," Chaffetz said of Pierson. "I want to give her a chance. But I see this as a total lack of leadership and very questionable protocol," he told the Times.

According to the Post, the failure to stop Gonzalez represented multiple breakdowns in the security process.

First, plainclothes officers were supposed to have noticed him going over the fence and sound an alert. When they failed to notice him, an officer at the guard booth on the North Lawn was supposed to have pursued him. When that officer couldn't reach him, an attack dog was supposed to have been released and a SWAT team and front-door guard were supposed to have been at the ready.

Related Stories:

• Peter King: 'Absolutely Inexcusable' Man With Knife Entered White House
• White House Gets Second Barrier After Fence Jumping

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.