Free Republic

A Secret Service official’s allegedly deliberate decision to embarrass Rep. Jason Chaffetz could “give pause” to other lawmakers who have applied for federal jobs, cautioned former House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Let’s not shy away from what the Secret Service actually was up to in the matter of its illegal spying on Representative Jason Chaffetz: conspiracy to commit blackmail against a member of Congress. Representative Chaffetz has been investigating the scandal-plagued protective agency — the habitual drunkenness and whoring of its agents, among other things — when Secret Service personnel improperly accessed his protected records in a hunt for dirt. The aim of this was made clear by assistant director Ed Lowery, who wrote to assistant director Faron Paramore: “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out.” Critics...

Her temperment is perfectly unsuited for the presidency. ‘​Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton. “F*** off,” she replied. That exchange is one among many that active and retired Secret Service agents shared with Ronald Kessler, author of First Family Detail, a compelling look at the intrepid personnel who shield America’s presidents and their families — and at those whom they guard. Kessler writes flatteringly and critically about people in both parties. Regarding the Clintons, Kessler presents Chelsea as a model protectee who respected and appreciated her agents. He describes Bill as a...

It’s only taken — what — five or six years for the Secret Service to go from one of America’s most trusted and respected security institution to a collection of politicized bureaucratic hacks. Nice work, Obama administration: An assistant director of the Secret Service urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman ­critical of the service should be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday. “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting...

Retaliation. I guess the Secret Service felt it needed to do more to make itself just like a high school. It’s not enough that agents like to get drunk while on assignment and pick up prostitutes. Now, if anyone investigates their misdeeds, they’re going to get back at the narc by spreading stories about him. Oh, by the way, these are the people who protect the life of the president. That should make you feel warm and cuddly inside. So when Congressman Jason Chaffetz drove an investigation into the misdeeds and failings of the Secret Service, you can bet they...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Scores of U.S. Secret Service employees improperly accessed the decade-old, unsuccessful job application of a congressman who was investigating scandals inside the agency, a new government report said Wednesday. An assistant director suggested leaking embarrassing information to retaliate against Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House oversight committee.</p>

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitizer prize winning reporter who has worked for the Washington Post and Huffington Post, has revealed that he is an illegal alien in a coordinated media push with the New York Times and ABC News seeking amnesty for illegal aliens like him.Vargas also revealed that he breached White House security by using a fake ID, including when he covered a state dinner. And that a superior at the Washington Post knew and approved of his actions.Vargas made the revelations in an article he authored published in the upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine.Vargas writes that at...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's safety was not jeopardized by the actions of Secret Service agents who brought prostitutes back to a Colombia hotel on the eve of his arrival, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured a Senate committee Wednesday. "There was no risk to the president," she told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the first public questioning of an administration official since the scandal broke as Obama prepared to visit Cartagena for a summit. Napolitano said that a review of Secret Service records showed no similar episodes of misconduct that might have warned of brewing problems at...

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson will face questions about how an armed intruder jumped the White House fence and made it as far as the East Room when she testifies before a House committee on Tuesday. Sources confirmed to Fox News on Monday that 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez overpowered a Secret Service officer in the Sept. 19 incident -- this led to a struggle and "wrestling" inside the executive mansion as he darted through. Gonzalez was eventually tackled by a counter-assault agent in the East Room after he reached the doorway to the Green Room, a parlor overlooking the South Lawn....

The Secret Service’s assistant director urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman critical of the service should be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday. “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting on an internal file that was being widely circulated inside the service. “Just to be fair.” Two days later, a news Web site reported that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, had applied to be...

The Secret Service leaked sensitive personal information to the press about Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz as the Utah Republican was investigating the beleaguered agency, an inspector general's report said Wednesday. The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General issued a report on Wednesday that accused Secret Service Assistant Director Edward Lowery and other agency officials of plotting to leak information about Chaffetz, including his unsuccessful attempt to join the organization. The leaks were a highly unusual breach of decorum. Lawmakers often battle with agencies, but the fights mostly stay above board and focus on...

An assistant director of the Secret Service urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman critical of the service should be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday. “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting on an internal file that was being widely circulated inside the service. “Just to be fair.” Two days later, a news Web site reported that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, had applied...

Mike Gillette said Clancy called him Monday and said he was “very sorry,” and that the agency “did not handle the situation well.” A spokeswoman for the Secret Service confirmed that Clancy made the call. According to Gillette, Clancy offered to come to one of the group’s events to apologize in person and offered to have some of the children come to one of the agency’s training facilities in Maryland for a tour. ... In a statement e-mailed late Sunday, Brian Leary, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said the closures on Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Square were “put into...

The U.S. Secret Service ordered hundreds of parents and their cancer-stricken children out of Lafayette Square on Saturday night, barricading the park for at least two hours and disrupting the group’s plans for a candlelight vigil to raise awareness of and research funding for childhood cancer, participants said. Some of the parents and children expressed hurt and disappointment that the Secret Service and Park Police, citing security precautions, virtually shut down part of a two-day event called CureFest for Childhood Cancer.

Whacking Donald Trump with a stick is big business in San Francisco. You can do it for $14 to the small Trump, or $20 if you splurge for the large Trump. The stick costs $3 extra, and you really need a proper stick, customers say, to bust Trump to smithereens. Those are the economics — a field said to be Trump’s specialty — in the red-hot business of selling Donald Trump piñatas.

Vice President Joe Biden enjoys swimming without a bathing suit, a new book claims.Biden, who’s flirting with a run for president in 2016, gives Secret Service agents an eyeful both at his Delaware home and at the vice president’s official residence in Washington, D.C., according to “The First Family Detail” by Ronald Kessler.The book relies on named and unnamed sources to describe life guarding prominent politicians including Biden, former President Ronald Reagan, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. “Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a...

Ronald Kessler, writing for The Daily Mail, testifies that Hillary Clinton and her long-time aide Huma Abedin were detested by members of the Secret Service because the two women arrogantly treated the Secret Service agents like dirt. Kessler, the author of The Secrets of the FBI and The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents, dismisses claims by members of the media that the current FBI investigation of Clinton is restricted to a “security investigation.” He attests that the investigation of Clinton means that she violated criminal laws, as the FBI will not launch an investigation...

Facing accusations that it cannot adequately protect the White House, the U.S. Secret Service plans to hire 1,100 more officers and agents for an agency besieged by embarrassing scandals and security lapses, two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the plans said. The addition of 700 uniformed division officers and 400 agents over five years would expand its staff of 6,647 by nearly 17 percent, the biggest hiring increase in more than a decade at the 150-year-old agency whose job it is to protect the president, his family, and senior officials, along with fighting financial crime. The Secret Service...

Secret Service Investigating Alleged Bush Threat— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Secret Service said on Sunday it had no comment on a report that a trucker had been arrested outside Chattanooga, Tennessee after allegedly threatening President Bush. "The Secret Service is conducting an investigation and due to there being an active, ongoing investigation, I can't make any further comment about it," said a Secret Service official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Cable News Network reported the man told police he had a 3,000-pound bomb "... and the president has problems," in a telephone conversation that led to his apprehension...

Guns are evil. More guns = more crime. Get rid of guns, because bad people do bad things with guns. Now that we’ve established the ground rules, ladies and gentlemen: the President of the United States. “We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed, in part, because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.” Whether or not anything he just said is true, it’s clear that his appeal to emotion demands immediate and decisive action. That’s why, for the sake of Americans everywhere,...