OPINION:
The two men recently charged with impersonating federal officers while plying Secret Service agents and officers with gifts so far appear to be wannabes who sought to enhance their own importance by ingratiating themselves with law enforcement.
According to federal prosecutors, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali posed as Homeland Security agents and offered Secret Service personnel gifts that included iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen television, a generator, law enforcement paraphernalia and free rental apartments worth $40,000 a year.
The bizarre episode spotlights the potential danger to the president and other protectees if a terrorist organization or a foreign intelligence service were behind such a scheme. By buying off Secret Service personnel, perpetrators could gain access to the president to assassinate him, obtain highly classified information or install bugging devices in the Oval Office.
While a recent Washington Post story mentioned that agents are questioned about their finances every five years, the real solution has been ignored.
As I wrote in my book “The First Family Detail,” applicants to be Secret Service agents must pass a polygraph exam. But after they sign up, agents are never again required to undergo regular lie detector testing. In contrast, the FBI polygraphs all employees — not just agents — every five years. FBI counterintelligence agents are polygraphed more often. Likewise, the CIA polygraphs its officers on a regular basis.
The FBI learned the hard way the importance of regular polygraph testing. After the arrest of CIA officer Aldrich Ames in 1994 for spying, Robert “Bear” Bryant, as head of the bureau’s National Security Division, urged then FBI director Louis Freeh to approve regular polygraphs for all counterintelligence agents. But faced with opposition from many special agents in charge of field offices and from the FBI Agents Association, Freeh backed down and shelved the proposal.
While polygraph tests are not perfect, if nothing else, they are a deterrent. If Mr. Freeh had in fact approved Mr. Bryant’s proposal in 1994 to polygraph counterintelligence agents, FBI agent Robert Hanssen likely would have decided to stop spying for the Russians. Instead, for seven years after Freeh refused to allow regular polygraphing, Hanssen continued to provide the Russians with some of the most damaging information in the history of American espionage.
In addition, FBI agents are required to attend annual updates on law, ethics and security. As an example of how negligent the Secret Service is about such matters, after I broke the scandal involving agents hiring prostitutes in Colombia, the Secret Service announced it would provide ethics training — but only to a hundred agents.
The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment about the need for regular polygraph testing.
Until Secret Service directors appointed by former President Donald Trump took over, the Secret Service was plagued by one shocking security breach after another and lied about the breaches to the public.
As an example of that cover-up culture, Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, stonewalled at a House Judiciary Committee hearing when asked whether anyone in the Secret Service would be held accountable for making false statements about Omar J. Gonzalez’s September 2014 intrusion at the White House.
Even though the Secret Service knew as it was happening that Mr. Gonzalez had penetrated the White House and was armed with a knife, Mr. Clancy insisted that the agency did not intentionally issue falsehoods when it told the press that Mr. Gonzalez had been stopped at the door and was unarmed. When asked how he knew the untruths were not intentional, Clancy admitted he did not know how or why the false statements were made.
Much like a car that never gets regular maintenance and oil changes, the Secret Service lurches along until a tragedy like the John F. Kennedy assassination forces it to rectify deficiencies. The Secret Service’s failure to require regular polygraph testing can be attributed both to pure arrogance and a short-sighted desire to cut costs.
For decades, the Secret Service’s management has boasted “we make do with less.” No one can rationally explain that mindset and lackadaisical attitude. But the agency’s failure to adopt the FBI’s and CIA’s example requiring regular polygraph testing clearly goes back to that arrogant management culture.
• Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the author of “The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents.”
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