Photo credit: Courtesy of Ron Kessler- Slider photo by Janet Donovan
We were going to post this in the morning, but when Ron Kessler told us Good Morning America was on the way to his house to interview him, we decided to, well, to beat them. Ron, of course, is the multi best-selling author on books about the Secret Service and the FBI and about everything else you want to know about how our tax dollars are at work, including Cartegna, Columbia. So, let’s start there – Columbia.
“Mark Sullivan (the out going head of the Secret Service) really presided over several Secret Service scandals. One of them was the prostitute scandal in Columbia which I broke in the Washington Post and the intrusion at the White House state dinner by the Salahi’s and the third intruder Carlos Allen. He has quite a record,” said Kessler. “Somehow he’s been able to cultivate a lot of powerful people including President Obama, including members of congress. He’s very good at giving them access, keeping them informed, which is fine, but I think he pulled the wool over their eyes.” On that scandal – Cartegena – Hollywood on the Potomac also reported it through the eyes of Kessler. Take a look back here – “If you Play, You Pay.”
Enter Julie Pierson, the first woman to take the head spot on the Secret Service ticket. We wanted to know how he thought she would do: “I think it will be just the same as before, unfortunately. That means the same lax culture, this cover up mentally. For example, when members of congress go out to visit the Secret Service training center in Laurel, Maryland, which I did, they would put on these shows to show how wonderful the agents are with the scenarios but they’re actually rehearsed secretly beforehand. They’re really pulling the wool over members of congress eyes. Another thing they do is they will ask agents to fill out their own test scores on physical fitness training.”
There is no Congressional confirmation for this position so we wanted to know why for such an important post? “It totally slips between the cracks,” Kessler informed us. “I think I’m the only one who’s pointed that out in the Washington Times. You have confirmation of these obscure people that no one’s ever heard of, the drug czar, various people in the justice department at low levels. You have a combination of 94 marshals and 94 judicial districts but, yet, you don’t have confirmation of the Secret Service director. Really, the Secret Service Agency is almost as important and sensitive as the FBI because if you have an assassination, you nullify democracy.”
For all intents and purposes, the Secret Service seems to be a boys’ club as even exemplified in movies like the Body Guard or Clint Eastwood movies.. “Do you think that if there were congressional confirmations, they would’ve named a woman?” we asked.
“I don’t think that would have an impact. There are women in very important positions in the Secret Service and they have increased the percentage of woman in the FBI now as well,” he remarked. I think that the problem is that this person comes from the inside. I think the Secret Service needs a complete shake up change in culture which is when Bob Mueller became FBI Director, he was from the outside and he’s done a wonderful job of changing the direction, not that it was doing a terrible job before, but making it much more prevention oriented, not going along with people just because they’d been there a long time. That is really what I think is needed, an outside director.”
So what would he do if he were in charge of changing things? “First, I’d bring in some FBI people to help out because I think the culture of the FBI is very good and doesn’t tolerate cover ups. It doesn’t tolerate excuses. Not to say that agents in the Secret Service are not brave, they’ll take a bullet for the President, they’re patriots. There is this culture and there is a fear of management. Management is out of touch and the morale is very low. They do a lot of transferring for no reason. All of these things need to be changed, and only one director can change that and that person has to be from the outside.”
