Trump resorts aren’t easier to defend, Secret Service vets grumble
5 години преди
Secret Service veterans are grumbling about the Trump administration’s repeated insistence that it’s logistically easier for law enforcement to secure Trump resorts when the president and vice president travel.
The issue popped up again Tuesday, when Vice President Mike Pence was pressed about his decision to stay at Trump’s property in Doonbeg, Ireland, despite its location farther away from meeting locations than other hotels.
„I understand political attacks by Democrats, but if you have a chance to get to Doonbeg, you’ll find it’s a fairly small place,“ Pence told reporters, „and the opportunity to stay at the Trump National in Doonbeg, to accommodate the unique footprint that comes with our security detail and other personnel, made it logical.“
The explanation prompted some eye rolling in the Secret Service community. Ex-officials noted that location often has little, if anything, to do with protection. Instead, they said, agents make plans based on the surrounding context and situation, like potential violence, protests or weather events.
“Although it can be helpful to have protected a location before, even recurring locations of protection, like the U.S. Capitol, go through the same methodology each time due to situational changes,” said Donald Mihalek, who served in the Secret Service for 20 years.
Any familiarity the Secret Service has with a protected location, he added, “is the result of extensive planning” by the agents, “which isn’t necessarily location-centric but based on a proven protective methodology.”
But President Donald Trump and his top aides have repeatedly used the logistics argument to defend his administration against accusations that it is merely lining the president’s pockets with its hotel choices.
Whether Trump’s properties are unfairly profiting off of his administration has dogged the president since entering office. Ethics officials and lawmakers have also raised concerns about the fact that foreign officials often stay at Trump hotels, and that Trump supporters and industry groups regularly throw bashes at Trump-owned locations. Trump is also considering hosting next year’s Group of Seven gathering of world leaders at his Doral resort in Florida, a potential financial boon for the property.
Trump has chafed at the suggestion that he is profiting off of his presidency, even arguing that he stands to lose billions by serving in the White House. And he and his team regularly rebuff accusations of favoritism with arguments that logistics are dictating their decisions.
Pence took that approach on Tuesday, insisting that his stay at a Trump resort during a trip to Ireland this week provides a „logical“ accommodation for his visit to his mother’s ancestral homeland.
Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, made a similar argument, telling reporters that the Doonbeg resort has “the size that … we think can accommodate us, and Secret Service can protect us.“ He went on to describe Trump’s Doonbeg property as “a facility that could accommodate the team,“ with logistics already familiar to the Secret Service.
Trump made a similar argument in favor of bringing the G-7 summit to Doral next year, even telling reporters that the Secret Service had expressed a preference for the G7 to be hosted at his resort in Florida next year.
“When my people came back…They went to places all over the country. And they came back and they said, ‘This is where we would like to be,’” Trump told reporters. “Now we had military people doing it. We had Secret Service people doing it.”
That doesn’t ring true to veteran agents, however.
“The Secret Service is capable of providing protection anywhere and anytime as it has over its history including under arduous circumstances like combat zones,” said Mihalek, now the Executive Director of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
That method remains largely the same regardless of where the president or vice president stay, Jonathan Wackrow, a 13-year Secret Service veteran who coordinated travel and advance operations for President Barack Obama.
„Preferably I’d like the president or vice president to be in a secure bunker,“ Wackrow joked, „but that’s not feasible.“
Wackrow explained that the Secret Service „does not typically have a preference“ for where the president or vice president stay when they travel. „If we started to operate under that model, we’d not be following our protective paradigm,“ he said, which involves „a very comprehensive advance process to build a security plan“ for each location.
He also cautioned that just because the Secret Service has been to a location in the past doesn’t make it easier to secure again. „In fact, it can make it harder because complacency kills,“ he said. „The moment you become complacent, the potential for someone to get harmed is much greater.“
Pence has been the subject of criticism from Democratic lawmakers for his decision to spend Monday night at Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Doonbeg while in Ireland. From Doonbeg, Pence embarked on an hour-long flight Tuesday morning to Dublin to meet Irish President Michael Higgins and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Short told reporters that the vice president was invited, not instructed, by Trump to stay at his resort and that taxpayers will foot the bill for the lodging.
„I don’t think it was a request, like a command. … I think that it was a suggestion,“ Short said.
„It’s like when we went through the trip, it’s like, well, he’s going to Doonbeg because that’s where the Pence family is from. It’s like, ‘Well, you should stay at my place,’” Short added of Trump’s offer.
Short said the president’s proposal “wasn’t like a, ‘You must.’ It wasn’t like, ‘You have to.’”
He added that Pence’s stop in Doonbeg was initially the last leg of his foreign trip, but it became necessary for the vice president to fly back-and-forth to Dublin after the White House altered his travel schedule last week.
Trump on Thursday announced Pence would visit Poland over the weekend to attend a commemoration event for the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, while he remained in the U.S. to monitor developments related to Hurricane Dorian.
“When the hurricane arose and the president asked the vice president to go to Poland in his stead, our logistical challenge was, how do we make that all work?” Short said.
Pence on Monday departed Warsaw, Poland, and participated in a meeting with Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney upon arriving in Shannon, Ireland, later that afternoon.
Pence was joined in Ireland by his wife, second lady Karen Pence; his mother, Nancy Pence Fritsch; and his sister. He is paying his mother’s and sister’s travel costs, Short confirmed Tuesday.
Pence traveled to Doonbeg in 1981 to explore his mother’s Irish ancestry, and on a return trip to the village with his family in 2013, he visited a bar and restaurant operated by a distant cousin. The vice president is scheduled to drop by the pub again Tuesday evening after returning from Dublin.
„I mean, if you think about the bonds that exist between the Irish people and the American people, they have much to do with shared heritage, they have much to do with family,“ Pence said Tuesday. „That’s why it was important for me, before our original trip [was] planned to at least spend one night in Doonbeg.“
Pence is set to meet later this week with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London.
