The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service is responsible for protecting the secretary of state, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visiting foreign dignitaries other than heads of state, and U.S. embassies and diplomats abroad. The deadly 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi underlined the DSS’s small margin for error.
But while State Department leaders insist DSS is fit for purpose, source testimony and documents seen by the Washington Examiner suggest otherwise. They indicate that although DSS resources are deeply strained, DSS is diverting sparse resources away from key missions in support of expensive domestic trips of unclear mission value and in pursuit of various questionable diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
As the Washington Examiner has previously reported, DSS is struggling to match its budget and personnel to handle much increased protective missions. In response to various Iranian assassination threats, DSS has maintained protective details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook. These and other protective missions have drawn resources away from DSS’s criminal investigations remit, which includes countering crimes such as visa and passport fraud. In late 2022, for example, DSS’s New York Field Office had not made a single arrest related to criminal investigations. This contrasted with 100+ arrests in prior years. Active serving and recently retired DSS personnel have told the Washington Examiner that certain security failures mean it is only a matter of time before overstretched resources lead to disaster.
Questionable management decisions by Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gentry Smith and DSS Director Carlos Matus bear attention.
Two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told the Washington Examiner that resources have been reduced for the protection of U.S. diplomatic interests in high-threat locations. One source noted that “high-threat training is back to pre-Benghazi days. … We’ve had to let go of local guards, bodyguards, and surveillance teams.” Sources also say that DEI priorities are taking priority over mission needs, sometimes to seemingly absurd degrees.
One source with direct knowledge of the circumstances described two relevant examples. First, one situation in which a biologically male candidate for the DSS special agent position “failed physical training standards. That candidate then successfully claimed that he was a woman so he could test at the female standards.” In another circumstance, “Nonbinary agent candidate had to be accommodated because they did not identify as male or female and therefore could not participate in searches.” DSS issued a receipt of the Washington Examiner’s email inquiry as to these and other requests for comment but then failed to respond to follow-up emails.
Sources also say there has been an excessive redirection of resources toward DEI-focused recruitment events. DSS documents reviewed by the Washington Examiner describe a four-day trip to Las Vegas in April 2022 involving 67 DSS personnel. The trip was led by Matus, DSS’s first and incumbent DEI officer Cassondra Searight, and numerous other high-ranking agents. A second trip to Vegas occurred in 2023. Similar trips have included Honolulu, the hometown of Smith, and New Orleans, in or around the Mardi Gras event. The Washington Examiner inquired to DSS as to where the delegations stayed during these visits and their estimated costs. As mentioned, DSS issued a receipt of inquiry but then failed to respond to follow-up emails.
The sources emphasized that these trips sometimes come at the apparent expense of security taskings. One source with direct knowledge noted that the DSS Countermeasures Directorate retains its own dedicated diversity, recruitment, and outreach team. The source said this team spends hundreds of thousands of dollars of its security technology budget on diversity and inclusion recruitment. The source asked, “Why does it take dozens of security engineering officers/technicians to go to these events that cost tens of thousands of dollars just for a booth?” adding, “Wonder which embassy we could spruce up with that six-figure budget?” Once again, DSS failed to respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for more information.
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Four sources also said a large number of more senior agents at the FS-1 (colonel-equivalent) and FS-2 (lieutenant colonel-equivalent) ranks are avoiding protective or other priority DSS assignments. This has caused friction with more junior agents who believe they are being asked to carry difficult or travel-intensive assignments so that more senior agents do not have to do so. In one previously unreported example of this concern, one senior DSS agent is on leave, serving in a private capacity as GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s head of security. That agent formerly headed up Haley’s security detail during her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
To be clear, there is an obvious interest in a DSS that reflects the country it serves. But considering the stakes involved in DSS’s mission, it bears asking whether congressional oversight committees should look more closely at how DSS is being managed and how it is allocating its resources and lines of effort.
