Category Archives: Secret Service

Secret Service’s January 6 text messages story has shifted several times, panel is told

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Explanation for how the messages from 5 and 6 January 2021 were deleted has gone from software upgrades to device replacements

The Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.

At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.

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Secret Service agents’ January 6 texts were erased after oversight request

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Office of Inspector General revealed that messages from 5 and 6 January were destroyed only after the request was made

Texts sent between US Secret Service agents on 5 and 6 January 2021 were erased after the agency’s oversight body sought the communications in a review into the Capitol attack, according to a letter from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The disclosure in the letter, sent on Thursday to the House homeland security and Senate homeland security and government affairs committees, marked the latest failure for the Secret Service amid increasing scrutiny for their actions over the attack.

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‘Incels’ are a rising threat in the US, Secret Service report finds

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Some behavioral themes identified include concerning online content, a history of being bullied and financial instability

A new US Secret Service report details a rising threat from men who identify as “involuntary celibates” or “incels”, due to their inability to form intimate relationships with women.

The report released on Tuesday and prepared by the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) highlights behavioral threat assessment themes identified in years of research examining targeted violence.

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Online extremist content surged before 6 January, says US agency

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FBI and DHS flagged content that could ‘inspire violence by lone offenders against government officials’

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned of an increase in extremist content and threats against US lawmakers in the days leading up to the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.

The memo, sent on Thursday to state and local law enforcement, said that DHS had no indication of a specific and credible plot, but that the agency and the FBI had “identified new content online that could inspire violence, particularly by lone offenders, and could be directed against political and other government officials, including members of Congress, state and local officials, and high-profile members of political parties, including in locations outside of [Washington DC]”.

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Trump golf club charged Secret Service $10,000 for rooms in May, records show

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  • Bedminster club charged agency for 18-day stay in May
  • Completely legal for Secret Service to be billed for rooms

Donald Trump charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for its use of guest rooms at his New Jersey golf club in May, newly released records indicate.

The May charges at the Trump National golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey totaled $10,199.52 for an 18-day stay – about $566 per night at the resort.

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Zero Fail review: US Secret Service as presidential protectors – and drunken frat boys

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Pulitzer-winner Carol Leonnig anatomises an agency that has never truly lived up to its steely professional image

At times, the US Secret Service has resembled a bunch of pistol-toting frat boys on a taxpayer-funded spring break. In the words of a drunken supervisor speaking to his men in the run-up to a 2012 summit in Cartagena, Colombia: “You don’t know how lucky you are … You are going to fuck your way across the globe.”

Related: Trump family members got ‘inappropriately close’ to Secret Service agents, book claims

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Sorry, try Obama’s house: Secret Service barred from using Ivanka Trump’s bathrooms

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Secret Service detail were forced to use porta-potties or neighbors’ bathrooms until government rented them an apartment

The dying days of the Trump administration have been plagued by yet more scandal in the form of riots, Twitter bans and impeachment. Now the Washington Post has added another: water closet gate.

In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom.

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