Does Trump get to pick who is assigned to his SS detail? Since they are a government agency could a FBI agent be assigned the task if there was reason to suspect he was selling secrets to foreign dictators? If not, why not? The FBI can pretend to be a postal employee, why not a Secret Service agent? Seems that they would have similar enough training to pull it off.
Is the secret service large enough that the other agents would not be suspicious of a new agent coming in that nobody knew?
I would think so according to their website they have over 7000 special agents. I also don’t think that it would be unusual for someone from the FBI transferring over to the Secret Service as its likely that most agents start at some other branch of law enforcement.
I would think that they are sworn to protect him but not to lie and cover up crimes for him. One would think that if they observed a crime they would be required to report it.
2300 agents according to this page on the site. the rest are uniformed officers and technicians.
Still its a large organization spread out to numerous offices and doesn’t really address my questions. And as for the matter of a ringer being spotted, why not just order an existing agent to observe the former President for suspicious activities.
Oh, and your site says there are 3200 special agents, not 2300.
sorry, 3200. but in order for this to happen the fbi agent would have to transfer to the secret and then be immediately put onto trumps protective detail. New SS agents start off on the investigative side of the service for their first few years. Maybe an fbi agent could skip this part but it seems unlikely that their first protective detail would be trump.
This is just conjecture on your part, I’m looking for a factual answer. So if you know for a fact that former FBI agents are not already in the Secret Service please share. If not I’d like some factual answers to my OP.
apologies, I didn’t realise I needed your permission to post. IMO as an idea your OP is nonsense.
Since the rest of your post hinges on this first question, it looks like the President doesn’t directly pick her/his agents and cannot fire them, but has influence enough to have them transferred to other duties until she/he is happy with the detail assigned. An ex-President, such as Trump, has no say or influence whatsoever.
Can the Secret Service Override the President? - Civil Service HQ
FBI agents secretly infiltrating the SS to conduct covert surveillance on protectees? Do you think that anyone who knows this for a fact would actually share that information? Your question and response to others’ replies is analogous to asking the SDMB for secret launch codes and getting angry when someone tries to answer despite not currently sitting in a silo or holding the football.
No, I’d like to know if there is a separation of departments that prevents this. Since the SS is part of Homeland security is there any statue of law keeping them from going from FBI to Secret Service on an ad hoc basis. A factual answer. Or just ordering an SS agent to spy on the former President. Is there a law that prevents that?
Are you talking about the Secret Service ordering an agent to spy on a former president, or the FBI ordering a former agent now working for the Secret Service to spy on a former president?
The SS would not investigate or be ordered to investigate a protectee for anything other than for crimes against the financial infrastructure of the United States. Other crimes would be outside of their area of responsibility. For all other criminal investigations involving a protectee, these would be handled by the FBI. The SS and FBI have agreements in place on how to handle such things.
As for transfering agencies, there is the potential secret/covert, undercover operation which is anyone’s guess. And there is the actual, established ability of a federal law enforcement officer to transfer from one agency to another. It’s not really a “transfer”, but all federal law enforcement officers are GS government employees. They can apply for open, external positions in other agencies provided they meet the requirements. They would probably have to reattend FLETC to receive the agency specific training they’d need, and would have to enter the new agency at whatever pay grade the new job rated (GS10 if entry-level).
Thank you @Bear_Nenno and @Czarcasm , that is the kind of information I was looking for. To quote a part of it:
In the event of any other violation of law involving a protectee of the Secret Service for which the FBI has investigative jurisdiction:
1. The same procedures shall be followed concerning control and presence as outlined above. The Directors of the Secret Service and the FBI, or their designees, shall agree to an orderly transfer of responsibilities.
2. The Secret Service during the immediate period following the violation will maintain and preserve any suspects, witnesses, and evidence under its control until such time as the FBI assumes its investigative responsibilities.
3. The FBI and the Secret Service will coordinate the subsequent investigation or investigations and the Secret Service will have presence in all phases of the investigations pursuant to its responsibilities under law.
My bolding. So this could be going on right now, we just of course wouldn’t know it. That and there are other issues going on internally with the SS and there phones being wiped that makes cooperation move difficult. But that’s another matter, my questions have been answered.
My main reason for asking this question was to determine if it could have been the SS that tipped off the investigators about the classified documents status at Mar-A-Largo. They just might have.
Agents are assigned to protection details by the larger office. A new guy may get assigned but the supervisor of the detail would be made aware of it ahead of time, including a picture. No one could just show up and try to get on the detail.
[Moderating]
The OP of a thread does not have the authority to directly tell someone whether they can post, but they can politely request factual answers. And you are welcome to hold the opinion that an OP is nonsense, but in FQ, please keep that opinion to yourself, as it is not relevant to anyone else in the thread, who are free to form their own opinions.
There is virtually no way an FBI agent could fool a bunch of SS agents beyond the most superficial glossing walk-by, even below the high level FPOTUS in the OP. There would be too much lingo and slang, names of bosses, anecdotes about past events, codewords. There are tons of little details unique to an organization that simply cannot be faked for more than a minute or two.