With Joe Biden now having requested (and almost certain to receive) Secret Service protection, it’s worth considering an oft-ignored strength of the nation’s foremost protective service agency. Its name is fitting.
The Secret Service is very good at keeping secrets. This puts Secret Service agents and officers apart from many of those in politics. Just consider what the Secret Service knows.
Its special agents are privy to President Trump’s conversations, whether conducted in his limousine, or on walks around the White House. In view of the president’s penchant for speaking plainly, we can be confident the agents of the Presidential Protective Division have heard some newsworthy comments!
Yet Trump’s comments don’t leak — at least not on their account. Nor do those of Melania Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Vice President Mike Pence, and literally dozens of other Trump administration officials under Secret Service protections.
We are right to expect this secrecy from the Secret Service for two reasons.
First, because Secret Service protectees have daily discussions concerning the nation’s most closely guarded secrets. This is part of the reason Secret Service agents have exceptionally high-level security clearances. We don’t want a Secret Service agent walking into the Chinese or Russian embassy and spouting off, for example, or being in financial straits that lead to bribery or blackmail.
Fortunately, we haven’t yet faced that challenge. Unlike the CIA and FBI, the ranks of the Secret Service have never hosted a traitor.
Secrecy is also instrumental to the work of physical protection. Agents are aware that if they blather about those they are charged with protecting, those individuals will create separation from their detail agents. Separation means less security. And less security means more vulnerability to assassination or kidnap, which in turn affects national policy.
To retain trust with those they stand post to protect, agents must thus close a blind eye to certain behaviors, even where mildly illegal — as with Malia Obama’s apparent smoking of marijuana. And even where leaks have occurred, such as during the Clinton administration, they have pertained to rude conduct — Hillary Clinton is notoriously challenging to protect — rather than ill-judged conduct. (Secret Service agents were highly reluctant to testify to investigators in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.)
Ultimately, whether we’re Democrats, Independents, or Republicans, we should be grateful that this agency is holding the watch for our democracy. It’s a rare gem.
