The House Oversight Committee is broadening its ongoing investigation into the Secret Service to probe Kerry O’Grady, the Secret Service agent who decried taking “a bullet” for President Trump in a Facebook post last year.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who chairs the committee, and Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who serves as its ranking member, on Monday sent a letter asking the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General to produce all “documents referring or relating” to O’Grady.
In the letter, Chaffetz and Cummings asked DHS Inspector General John Roth to deliver the documents to the committee, preferably in electronic format, by 5 p.m. on Feb. 10.
“To assist the committee’s ongoing investigation of the Secret Service, please produce all documents referring or relating to Kerry O’Grady and all associated attachments,” it states.
The lawmakers did not specifically mention the Secret Service’s own investigation into O’Grady’s Facebook post, which the agency launched after the Washington Examiner reported on her post last month. She is on paid leave while the agency investigates.
The lawmakers may want to know whether DHS inspector general’s office declined to investigate O’Grady’s social media activity after the office received a complaint about it Oct. 11. The Secret Service has acknowledged receiving a complaint about her Facebook posts in early October and said it took “action.”
Critics in the Secret Service community also want to know why the agency didn’t launch a full-scale investigation until the Examiner reported on the agent’s Facebook posts.
O’Grady, the top Secret Service official in the Denver office, posted several Facebook condemnations of President Trump during the past seven months including one in early October in which she said she would rather face “jail time” than take “a bullet” for him.
She explained herself in the post by saying she viewed his presidential candidacy as a “disaster” for the country, especially for women and minorities.
A day after the Examiner’s initial report on the Facebook post, the premier group for retired agents, the Former Agents U.S. Secret Service, swiftly expelled O’Grady from its ranks of associate members.
The spouses of several Secret Service agents are circulating a petition calling for O’Grady’s immediate removal because they say they and the local law enforcement community no longer have faith that she can lead the Denver office.
