In light of the recent troubles with the Secret Service, would it be legal for the President to hire his own security personnel (and eventually pay them out of his own pocket)? For instance, if the President wants someone to check once in a while if the front door of the White House is locked or maybe to hire a pensioner to chase the occasional loiterer off the front lawn, could he do that?
I suppose if he were independently wealthy, he could.
After all, POTUS gives the orders. He could order the Secret Service to let Guido and his boys with criminal records be his posse - as long as the guns they carried were duly registered and licensed. That to my mind would be the hard part - it’s a lot easier to use the exemption for federal agents than to get permits for 50 states and a number of foreign countries, especially if you hire goons with records. I suppose there’s always Blackwater, there’s no criminal record for machine-gunning civilians in Iraq. It would be simpler to order the SS to give his private goons credentials as officers.
This brings up the question of costs. Some presidents, believe it or not, are not stupendously wealthy. Paying elite bodyguards is not cheap. Presumably at a certain point, if you want to obey the letter of the law, the president would have to pay out of his own pocket for their meals, transportation, equivalent airfare on Air Force One, etc. What government money is spent on is an important legal sticking point.
There’s one other issue besides the money. The Secret Service, by virtue of its responsibility towards the president, is in a unique position to ignore or disobey presidential orders.
Based on what I have read, SS agents will very reluctantly go along with certain things that they would rather not, but I’m sure that there comes a point when they would say, “I’m sorry, but we can’t obey that order.”
The president can do pretty much anything that you or I can do, except for activities that constitute official functions, in which he is restricted to the limitations or obligations of that office. For example, the president made selections in ESPN’s NCAA basketball Tournament Challenge last year. There was a cash prize, with about a 1:12,000,000 chance of winning, and the prez came in ranked 2,987,736th (better than 3/4 of the participants).
His office, generally, does not limit him from exercising any of the rights Americans possess by virtue of the Constitution, including hiring people with his own money to perform tasks on his behalf. He can, for example, hire accountants to prepare his tax returns and manage his personal estate during his presidency.
Having said that, any person who is hired by the president privately, in order to conduct personal business with the president, is subject to any security measures that are already in place wherever the president happens to be physically present. If the president hired his own security personnel, they would need to have security clearance in order to pass existing security around the venue.
Lyndon Johnson used to take particular delight in driving his car at high speeds on the back roads in south Texas in an effort to “lose” the security detail.
Guys, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t answer the damn question.
With some exceptions, the government is generally prohibited with accepting donations or services that would augment the things that government is supposed to do. So, if you wanted to donate $100 million to the Air Force to buy a fighter jet, the Air Force simply couple not accept that contribution. Under the same principle, Federal workers cannot volunteer to come in to work during a government shutdown. (There are numerous statutory exceptions, like you are perfectly free to make a donation to help reduce the debt.)
Protection of the White House and the President is an inherently governmental function. Inherently governmental functions cannot even be put out for contracts: it would not be possible to outsource the Secret Service’s Presidential protection or law enforcement activities to Blackwater or Brinks, for example. The USSS could contract for particular types of support, like for communications and whatnot, but there are lines drawn on what those contractors May and may not do.
So the idea that the President could hire private security to augment or replace the USSS in its statutory responsibilities just isn’t realistic at all. If he wished to hire private security for something that had no relation to his protection, that’s fine - maybe to keep an eye on a commercial property he owns but never visits, for example. But to check the doors at the White House? Of course not.
Here is a somewhat lighthearted take on the same principles, in which someone asks if Batman could donate a crime lab to the police. If Batman were to want to donate it to the Federal government, the cite responds, “Definitely not.” (For the same reasons I noted previously.)
I think the OP meant hire the detail personally. Yes, the POTUS cannot hire White House or Secret Service staff outside the approved methods, and only for government functions. How government money is spent is strictly regulated. Government staff cannot do political activities (although sometimes those lines are blurry). Money spent by the government on executive protection is spent under the direction of the secret service. As I said before, even the food or offices these guys had in the White House might need to be costed out and reimbursed to the government.
Everything in politics is a balancing act. If the president looked too much like a mafia big shot or offended too many senators and congressmen, they could impeach him if he misspends government money. The closest example to the president defying congress and common sense is Nixon’s “Night of the Long Knives”, where he worked his way down from the Attorney General until he found some who would rather fire the Watergate special prosecutor than resign.
But let’s say Kerry is POTUS and he has his wife’s hundreds of millions. He can pay out of his pocket for anyone he wants to accompany him. He would have to reimburse the government if the used a seat on Air Force One, for example. He can order the Secret Service to ignore the fact his goon squad is carrying weapons. If they chose not to, what happens? The secret service arrests them, the president orders the attorney general to drop charges, let them go, and fires the obnoxious secret service guys. (Or transfers them to bank inspection duty in northern Alaska)
Not sure what happens if a Republican governor decides to enforce local state carry laws against private body guards; I imagine the SS gets a pass as federal agents, but these guys are private individuals. The result in foreign travel would be interesting diplomatic negotiations; in most western countries, carrying weapons across the border is pretty tricky from what I know, let alone some private goons carrying guns near the local Queen or Prime Minister.
Most guys with armed guards, they hire from an agency that has all the paperwork done ahead of time; and most of the time, the client does not have the pull of the POTUS to get exceptions to instances where guns or burley extra guests are not permitted. But then, most people who need body guards do not need them inside the White House, or a Law Court, or customs, or similar secure facilities.
So to answer the OP - Yes he could, but the legalities of carrying guns can get tricky, and he would have to pay a lot of expenses out of his own pocket.
Okay, then provide cites that these officials hiring private security guards would not be a violation of the Antideficiency Act for being an illegal augmentation of funds prohibited by the purpose statute. The Antidefcicency Act carries criminal penalties, FYI, though nobody has been prosecuted under it.
md2000, please also provide cites that show that private contractors can be given security clearances to enter some of the most secure areas of the US government.
Please also provide cites that show the President can rent offices in government buildings for his own personal staff, who are not on the government payroll or engaged in the public service.
And please also provide cites that the President can waive laws regulating the carrying of weapons into secure areas by individuals who are not on the government payroll.
Could say Bush II have thought, “you know what, the Presidency needs a presence out West” and donated his ranch for use by Presidents under this law? I realise in such a scenario, practically they would pass enabling legislation to cover the transfer and any associated issues it raises, but interesting thought.
Not the POTUS, but I believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger, when he was Governor of California, at least for a considerable period of time, lived in a hotel suite in Sacramento which he paid for himself (he never moved into the official Governor’s residence). Schwarzenegger also took his own private jet for official trips and he completely waived his salary as Governor (or donated it to charity, I’m not quite sure).
The Secret Service is part of the executive branch. The Constitution provides that the President IS the executive branch. Anyone not doing what the President tells him to is subject to dismissal.
It’s a popular meme in the movies that the Secret Service can overrule the wishes of the President, and he probably does defer to their advice on a lot of things, but if push came to shove, the President can force them to obey his orders.
Congress would just need to pass a law authorizing the acceptance of the Western White House and it would be done. Absent a a special law, no, the President can’t simply start opening new government-owned White Houses all over the place on someone else’s dime.
I cite Nixon’s “night of the long knives”. The president can order what he wants in certain regards, and can find (eventually) cabinet ministers and further underlings who can order whomever he wishes to ignore (minor) breaches of regulations, provided they are not so heinous that nobody wants to stick their necks out. If the president calls the head of the CIA or FBI (hand-picked by him) and says “give these guys clearance” then I assume some people will check their credentials just to be sure the president is not being duped by a Soviet spy, but will give clearance if ordered.
(Heck, Cheney orchestrated the release of information about a CIA undercover operative, in direct violation of the law, and escaped blameless himself. Clinton had overnight white house guests as a fund-raising scheme. Nixon essentially had a paid “security” staff to do break-ins and other dirty tricks, and almost got away with it. In the most recent white house break-in it was revealed the SS atmosphere is so toxic that when bosses ordered that alarms be silenced, underlings were too intimidated to object. When bosses said “nobody shot at the white house” underlings were too intimidated to go over their heads. These are the guys that are going to challenge the president’s express word? ).
The president has plenty of staff that do political work, and hence must not be paid out of the civil service. Private persons that accompany the president on Air Force One, like any other freeloaders on government flights, the government must be reimbursed the cost of their flight - IIRC even the press adheres to this rule, paying for the press entourage to fly along.
Yep, no cites. Gotcha. This isn’t Yahoo Answers, you know.
He already has his own private security staff. It’s called the Secret Service. All he needs to do is fire the person directing the Secret Service staff with someone who will execute his intentions for security. Oh wait, looks like he already did that.
The limit on executive powers run wild is the congress and the ability to impeach… and as Long Knives demonstrated, the integrity and backbone of the staff around him. (which as Long Knives also demonstrated, has its limits. I believe he dismissed two Attorneys General before the third in line did as ordered.)
Other than that, the president can usually order his staff to do whatever he wants them to do. he can even promise to (and actually) pardon them for any federal offenses if they are worried about repercussions.
But Donnerw has it best - why go through this trouble when all he has to do is order the Secret Service to hire his guys, then put them in charge, etc.?
Or he could order some general to create a Seal group imperial guard (paid for by the military budget) and put the necessary people around him forcing the secret service to back down.
if you want cites - White House Office - Wikipedia - the president can hire (and fire) aides for political strategy and such, they occupy White House offices…
If some of his aides carry guns and stick closer than the Secret Service - well, that’s the president’s call, isn’t it? And not only that, the government appears to pick up the tab for them.
If the state department or FBI comes to the president and says “this guy should not get a security clearance” then the president should probably listen to the reason - carefully - but the decision probably comes down to him.
The Constitution and the U.S. Code were not written by Tom Clancy, you know.
I thought this question was what could the President do with his OWN funds? I fail to see how expenditures from his OWN PERSONAL funds would run afoul of the Antideficiency Act, which covers government apportioned funds.
Because the use of personal funds for activities which the government has responsibility for is an illegal augmentation of appropriations under the Antideficiency Act.
As the Government Accountability Office states:
For the President to create his own, privately funded Secret Service to replace or supplement the actual Secret Service is absolutely a circumvention of these principles. It would be an establishment of a security force for the President (which is an inherently governmental function) that expressly removes itself from accountability of the other branches of government, in terms of funding, policies, oversight, authority, size, and any other characteristic one can imagine. There’s simply no question that the President could not have a privately-run Secret Service on the side.