Conservative opponents of diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — initiatives are fond of moving the letters around in the acronym and calling it “DIE.”
It’s meant, obviously, as a bit of a troll. However, when such initiatives compromise the ability of the bureau to protect America’s highest-profile assassination targets, the switch is apt — and no laughing matter.
That’s what prompted at least 39 Secret Service members to sign onto a petition calling for an investigation into “a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training,” a Bloomberg senior White House correspondent reported Thursday, a little over two weeks after a female agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly had a breakdown and a physical altercation with her commanding agent at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg said that the “[a]im is to call for a congressional investigation, petition says,” listing vulnerabilities “to potential insider threats” and what Jacobs described as “a double standard in disciplinary actions.”
News: There’s a petition circulating inside the US Secret Service that flags concerns about “a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training,” a double standard in disciplinary actions, and a vulnerability “to potential insider threats” that could…
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 9, 2024
The existence of the petition was confirmed by Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics, who was the first to break the story — and suggest that the hiring of the alleged agent involved, identified as Michelle Herczeg, may have been part of a DEI initiative within the Secret Service to push for a force that’s 30 percent female by 2030.
I can confirm that there is a petition circulating in the Secret Service community calling for an @GOPoversight committee investigation and the removal of Kimberly Cheatle as Secret Service director. The petition raises issues about DEI hiring superseding training and creating… https://t.co/rp8Vwtibp0
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) May 9, 2024
Is the Secret Service at risk of being compromised in any way?
The petition came three days after the House Judiciary Committee announced it was opening an inquiry into similar DEI practices at the FBI and reports of vulnerabilities there as well, Crabtree pointed out.
Just three days ago, the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into DEI hiring and recruiting practices at the FBI. Now anonymous whistleblowers are calling for the same sort of Congressional investigation at the Secret Service. https://t.co/IkXVfajySS
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) May 9, 2024
The alleged incident involving Herczeg took place on April 24 as Vice President Harris was scheduled to leave from Joint Base Andrews, where Air Force One and Air Force Two are based.
At roughly 9 a.m., Crabtree reported on April 25, “Herczeg showed up at the terminal and began acting erratically, grabbing another senior agent’s personal phone and deleting applications on it, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The other agent, a shift leader, was able to recover his phone and then acted as if nothing had happened.”
The behavior continued in that vein, however, with the agent reportedly mumbling to herself and throwing menstrual pads and other items at another agent. She also allegedly told other Secret Service agents they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,” one source said.
The special agent in charge wasn’t spared from Herczeg’s wrath, either, with the agent allegedly yelling at him and listing the names of the other female officers on Harris’ detail, saying that they would side with her and keep her on the job. When she was relieved from duty due to obvious signs of a mental episode, a source said “she snapped entirely,” attacking her superior officer — first with a shove and a chest-bump, then by tackling and punching him.
The agents who restrained Herczeg said she still had a gun in her holster when they restrained her. They were able to cuff her, remove her gun and remove her from the Joint Base Andrews terminal.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the incident was a “medical matter” and that “[t]he U.S. Secret Service takes the safety and health of our employees very seriously.”
“A U.S. Secret Service special agent supporting the Vice President’s departure from Joint Base Andrews began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing,” he said, adding she was immediately “removed from their assignment” after the behavior manifested itself.
Harris, it’s worth noting, was still at the U.S. Naval Observatory, the official residence of the vice president, and therefore wasn’t in any danger. However, many wondered whether the incident could have been precluded were it not for the DEI push for a 30 percent female workforce.
Former Washington Post investigative reporter Ronald Kessler, who has authored several books on the Secret Service, told Crabtree that some of Herczeg’s background would have ordinarily been disqualifying for a Secret Service agent.
“In 2016, Herczeg, then an officer with the Dallas police force, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the city, claiming she was assaulted by a male superior and asking for more than $1 million in damages,” Crabtree reported.
“The suit alleged that Herczeg was ‘targeted for being a female officer and treated less favorably’ and was retaliated against after she reported sexual harassment and illegal actions of other officers. She also claimed she was not allowed to return to a crime-reduction team after she alleged a senior officer assaulted her. A Texas trial court dismissed the suit, Herczeg appealed, and a Texas court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision in 2021 and denied a rehearing in 2022.
“While serving on the Dallas police force, Herczeg and another officer shot an armed man while he sat in a parked car,” Crabtree added. “According to a department spokesman, the officers were firing in self defense because the man, who had previously been convicted of sexually assaulting a child, was brandishing a weapon and eventually shot himself in the head. A headline in the Dallas Observer raised some doubt about the official police account: ‘Two Dallas Cops Shot a Man Last Night, but They Say He Killed Himself.’”
Kessler told Crabtree that the discrimination lawsuit alone “should have been enough to exclude her, because you really have to have a pristine record.”
“Certainly, this has been true in the past. There’s tremendous competition, and she never should have been hired,” Kessler said.
Crabtree also cited Gary Byrne, a former Secret Service agent who protected former President Bill Clinton and said that there had been “been plenty of exceptions to usual Secret Service standards in the agency’s hiring practices, including numerous incidents of nepotism.
“Byrne remembered a push for more female agents during the Clinton administration and one female Secret Service officer telling him that she was never required to take a polygraph before she was hired, which is a requirement for all officers and agent applicants,” Crabtree reported.
“They tell you if you have character issues or mental-stability issues, you can’t take the job, they’ll find out about it,” Byrne said. “If you have any instability issues at all, this job will expose them.”
Guglielmi, you will not be surprised to learn, denied this was a plausible explanation.
“Claims that the Secret Service’s standards have been lowered as a result of our signing this pledge [to hire 30 percent women by 2030] are categorically false,” he said.
If that’s a lie, however, it might be exposed sooner rather than later — particularly given the petition and the House Judiciary Committee’s relative interest in the matter. In the interim, we can only pray that the letters in DEI don’t get very unironically rearranged because a lunatic — either within or outside the agency — was able to assail a high-profile target because of lowered standards and missed red flags.
