How Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can make the Secret Ser­vice great again

At a recent church ser­vice, a close rel­a­tive (an avid Trump sup­port­er) men­tioned to me that the pres­i­dent-elect needs to clean house at the U.S. Secret Ser­vice and staff it with vet­ted and loy­al spe­cial agents. 

His com­ment caught me, a for­mer Secret Ser­vice spe­cial agent, off guard. I spent the entire church ser­vice think­ing about how mis­guid­ed and unfor­tu­nate any attempt to politi­cize the Secret Ser­vice would be. But I also thought about ways Trump could refo­cus and ener­gize a belea­guered agency.   

Here are a few ways Trump could do it with­out being polit­i­cal. 

REMOVE CIVIL SERVICE PROTECTIONS

I worked with some amaz­ing and incred­i­ble peo­ple dur­ing my time in the Secret Ser­vice. I worked along­side Ivy League grad­u­ates, Divi­sion I and pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, and for­mer mem­bers of the Navy Seals, Army Rangers and Delta Force. I dai­ly wit­nessed my col­leagues mak­ing great sac­ri­fices to ensure the safe­ty of America’s elect­ed lead­ers.

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The hir­ing and selec­tion cri­te­ria are strin­gent, but like any oth­er orga­ni­za­tion, the Secret Ser­vice hires indi­vid­u­als from the human race. Some­times agents fall asleep on post or have neg­li­gent firearms dis­charges. Some don’t meet min­i­mum firearms requal­i­fi­ca­tions. Some can’t pass their phys­i­cals. These inci­dents are rare, but they hap­pen 

When Delta Force or Seal Team 6 have per­son­nel issues, they can dis­miss indi­vid­u­als for “fail­ure to main­tain stan­dards.” The U.S. Secret Ser­vice can­not do this. All spe­cial agents are fed­er­al employ­ees with civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tion. They can­not be fired or removed with­out cause. And the removal process for fed­er­al employ­ees can take months or years to resolve. 

This process was evi­dent in the July 2024 con­gres­sion­al hear­ings after the first assas­si­na­tion attempt on Don­ald Trump in But­ler, Penn­syl­va­nia. Sen. Josh Haw­ley, R‑Mo., repeat­ed­ly asked the U.S. Secret Ser­vice Direc­tor Ron Rowe if the site spe­cial agent had been “relieved of duty” or if the agents involved in the ral­ly pro­tec­tive advance had been fired. 

But the bot­tom line is, even if there were mis­takes made that led to the near cat­a­stroph­ic killing of Trump, the agents involved are enti­tled to civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions, accord­ing to fed­er­al employ­ment rules.  

How­ev­er, Pres­i­dent Trump could sign an exec­u­tive order that exempts mem­bers of the Secret Ser­vice from exist­ing civ­il ser­vice rules, allow­ing for an imme­di­ate fir­ing for “fail­ure to main­tain stan­dards.” 

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I am not say­ing spe­cial agents should be sum­mar­i­ly fired from fed­er­al ser­vice for any infrac­tion. There could be guardrails put into place. For exam­ple, if an agent fails at the pro­tec­tive mis­sion, the order could force the Secret Ser­vice to clear­ly demon­strate, using exist­ing legal bur­dens such as beyond a rea­son­able doubt, why the agent should be removed. 

The pro­tec­tive mis­sion of the Secret Ser­vice is vital to the nation­al secu­ri­ty of our coun­try. It is the foun­da­tion upon which the rest of our free democ­ra­cy func­tions. Pres­i­dents must feel free to make nation­al secu­ri­ty deci­sions based on their own judg­ment. Start­ing with this basic one: the Secret Ser­vice can­not fail at its pro­tec­tive mis­sion.

INCREASE STANDARDS

Dur­ing my time in the Secret Ser­vice, the Counter Assault Team (CAT) was the only spe­cial agent assign­ment that had a rig­or­ous selec­tion process, includ­ing phys­i­cal fit­ness, firearms and tac­ti­cal assess­ment. Addi­tion­al­ly, CAT selec­tion and basic cours­es had very high attri­tion rates. Pass the phys­i­cal and tac­ti­cal assess­ments, and you con­tin­ue. Fail and you go back to your pre­vi­ous assign­ment 

Train­ing for Pres­i­den­tial Pro­tec­tive Detail (PPD) or the Vice-Pres­i­den­tial Detail (VPD) had no such train­ing require­ments. PPD had no stan­dards, phys­i­cal or oth­er­wise, to join or remain in that assign­ment.   Selec­tion to PPD or VPD was often a patron­age selec­tion, and the pro­tec­tive train­ing was a famil­iar­iza­tion course rather than a rig­or­ous men­tal, phys­i­cal or tac­ti­cal chal­lenge.

If they haven’t done so already, the Secret Ser­vice should make pro­tec­tive detail train­ing extreme­ly chal­leng­ing and dif­fi­cult, with strin­gent firearms and phys­i­cal fit­ness stan­dards. Those that are not up to the rig­or­ous stan­dards should be re-assigned.

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RE-ASSIGN THE INVESTIGATIVE ROLE

Those in favor of the Secret Ser­vice keep­ing an inves­tiga­tive pro­file argue that this is where junior spe­cial agents learn the basics of law enforce­ment, inter­view­ing skills, read­ing human behav­ior, con­duct­ing sur­veil­lances, etc., before apply­ing those skills dur­ing pro­tec­tive mis­sions. 

I worked with dozens of agents when I was assigned to the Wash­ing­ton field office that rarely, if ever, con­duct­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion. Some of those agents are now in senior man­age­ment posi­tions with­in the agency, includ­ing high-lev­el pro­tec­tion assign­ments.

But inves­ti­gat­ing finan­cial crimes, as the Secret Ser­vice does, rarely requires the skills of a street cop. Rarely will inves­ti­gat­ing lead to chas­ing a sus­pect through the street or draw­ing a firearm. Sec­ond, agents are sim­ply not con­duct­ing enough inves­ti­ga­tions to tru­ly learn that skill set. Third, agents don’t learn how to pro­tect the pres­i­dent by con­duct­ing inves­ti­ga­tions. They learn pro­tec­tion by doing it. 

The Secret Ser­vice should relin­quish its inves­tiga­tive func­tion to either the Trea­sury Depart­ment or the dozen or more fed­er­al agen­cies that inves­ti­gate the same finan­cial crimes. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswany should take note that there is a lot of over­lap among fed­er­al law enforce­ment agen­cies. Re-assign­ing inves­ti­ga­tions would free up agents to train more to focus on pro­tec­tion.

Here’s some­thing else for Elon and Vivek to note. Why so many field offices around the world? Does the Secret Ser­vice real­ly need two field offices in Okla­homa? Or three in South Car­oli­na? Keep the main large region­al offices, L.A., Dal­las, Mia­mi and, of course, Wash­ing­ton D.C., and focus on pro­tec­tion. 

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The Secret Ser­vice is the most elite pro­tec­tion agency in the world, and it has always been staffed by high­ly com­pe­tent agents. Every pro­tec­tion agency in the world has mod­eled their pro­tec­tive pro­to­cols after the Secret Ser­vice. Direc­tor Rowe has acknowl­edged that mis­takes were made in But­ler, Penn­syl­va­nia, and he is mak­ing great strides in try­ing to fix what went wrong to ensure it doesn’t ever hap­pen again.

But remem­ber some­thing else about But­ler. All the agents (and uni­formed divi­sion counter snipers) assigned to the But­ler Trump ral­ly imme­di­ate­ly react­ed upon hear­ing the sound of gun­fire. They were will­ing to sac­ri­fice their own lives, regard­less of who they vot­ed for. So, yes, refo­cus and ener­gize this belea­guered agency, but ensure that the Secret Ser­vice remains a pro­fes­sion­al and apo­lit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion.