By: J. Lawrence Cunningham, Senior Fellow
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the wake of President Trump’s decisive win of the White House and the successful GOP wins of the House and Senate, the political arena in Washington has shifted from preventing a Trump win to sabotaging his “Promises Made, Promises Kept” agenda. Ranking Democrats, donors, governors and mayors in many blue states are launching concerted offensives to thwart the Trump agenda as much as possible as outlined in The New York Times:[1] As of this writing, leading Democrats are working hard to “Trump proof” earlier liberal initiatives and delay the confirmation of numerous, key Trump cabinet positions and dilute the 2nd Trump administration’s agenda.[2] [3] Senator Tom Cotton described it as follows: "What this is really about is trying to drag out all of these nominations to play procedural games,"[4]
Looking forward to President Trump’s second term, the following concerns with suggested remedies are set forth in this article.
1. The benefits of robust integrated security preparation for official events to include the State of the Union and beyond;
2. Improving the Secret Service, its performance and future viability as the nation’s elite protective federal agency; and
3. Reforming the deep state to prevent sabotaging the current and future U.S. Presidents and implementing reforms identified by several Inspectors General reports.
The Need for Effective, Integrated Security Planning for the State of the Union (Joint Session of Congress) and Future Official Events
In an effort to provide context to factors that may fuel potential protests and unrest with upcoming events to include the Joint Session of Congress (scheduled for March 4, 2025) and beyond, the following is set forth.
Key in the security planning process is and will be trusting the Intelligence Community (IC). The Trump administration is in the process of installing its IC leader picks. It is expected the security planning processes and critically, the integrated representation among the law enforcement jurisdictions will be effective. (We have seen this play out for both the 2024 election certification and the 2025 Inauguration.)
Concern over providing security for presidential events moving forward is based on the recent history of intelligence failures.[5] [6] For example the intelligence provided by the FBI and the DHS Office of Intelligence Analysis (I&A) to Capitol Police Chief Sund and the U.S. Park Police (USPP) prior to January 6, 2021 was incomplete and omitted threats targeting the election certification.
The Capitol Police (USCP), DC Metropolitan Police (DCMP), the USPP, the U.S. Secret Service and the public all deserve accurate and complete information from these agencies with respect to anticipated crowd size, crowd composition and planned protests for major events. Scalable security planning requires this for every U.S. President. If existing intelligence warrants it, a National Special Security Event (NSSE) should be declared by DHS.[7]
Moving forward in 2025 the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are collectively facing a disturbing quandary of mistrust across the board…discriminating fact from disinformation is becoming increasingly challenging as of this writing. The need for integrated, robust and effective operational planning with involved law enforcement jurisdictions is a serious concern.[8] Further, the critical and immediate need for the FBI and I&A to be transparent, diligent and forthcoming with ALL relevant intelligence (real time) impacting the Trump administration cannot be overstated.
These concerns during the current Trump administration are legitimate. The lack of the IC’s integrated planning with law enforcement is well documented in Chief Sund’s book, Courage Under Fire, Under Siege and Outnumbered 58-1 On January 6th. Notably, among other revelations, Sund’s book details: “An exposé of critical intelligence and military failures surrounding January 6 and the subsequent attempts to cover them up”[9]
Steps need to be taken immediately to ensure transparency of all agencies’ official preparations and actions.
What Can be Done Immediately?
Looking forward to the State of the Union, the USCP, Secret Service and FBI, the Senate leadership, the House of Representatives leadership and the Senate and House Sergeants at Arms need to support the following unified and unequivocal actions and message:
· There will be ZERO TOLERANCE for any disruption during the State of the Union Address and beyond;
· This official position needs to be unanimous and declared applicable nationwide;
· Prepare pre-recorded safety and security messages for dissemination to the public;
· For the Metropolitan DC area—The DCNG, the DC Mayor, the D.C. Metropolitan Police (DCMP), the Arlington Police Department (APD) and USPP will partner with the USCP and the Secret Service and craft Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to devise integrated security plan(s);
· Establish a clear, chain-of-command communications security assets approval process among all concerned prior to any major events;
· Provide dedicated and tested communication links to the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) to facilitate immediate intelligence and incident reporting from all law enforcement sectors, local, state and federal; and
· Review prior event after-action reports, identify missteps and establish consensus for corrections among concerned law enforcement agencies.
The State of the Secret Service – Can it be Saved?
A serious concern that January 6, 2021 brought into focus, and more recently with the two assassination attempts of President-elect Trump in July and September of 2024, the competence of the Secret Service. Directly connected is its relationship with the IC and the Biden Administration. Equally troubling is the lack of protective resources, i.e. experienced protective agents, counter-sniper teams, technical security teams, counter-surveillance and intelligence teams and worse—weak leadership—have profoundly hampered the Secret Service mission. In addition, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy initiatives, excessive demands to staff 35 protective details (for a variety of government officials), lack of mandated training, diluted hiring practices and very low morale have exacerbated the agency’s problems.
Today’s Secret Service finds itself in the midst of a cauldron of divisive issues that has been boiling in recent years. Given this, it is critical to identify strategies and plans to improve its protective competence and get ahead of any post-election potential unrest with growing domestic and foreign threat levels. This may prove to be a herculean task since successful mitigation is predicated on open and coordinated bipartisan support. This may be a naïve goal given the division in the nation’s populous, even now, post-election. It appears the basis of the contention up to the election and now, despite the clear Trump election victory, was to beat Trump. Now many Democrat leaders are vowing to sabotage the Trump administration’s proposed initiatives.
These factors and others continue to affect the effective protective operations of the Secret Service.
Considering these circumstances and alarmingly, two assassination attempts, the identification of Iranian assassination plots coupled with the recent operational failures of the Secret Service to implement basic protective security measures—their mission capability will require profound changes.
Reports continue among the Trump detail security agents, whistleblowers and former President Trump and now President Trump, the FBI has selectively and slowly released assassination plot and other threat information to the Secret Service. This has created distrust between the FBI and the Secret Service. On October 26, 2024, Business & Politics (BPR) reported “the DHS Office of General (OIG) admitted to Senator Grassley the DHS has a troubling history of obstruction, which Grassley cited as a “major red flag” for oversight.” Violations of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) are also being reported.[10] Other disturbing whistleblower reports allege “Acting Secret Service Director Rowe ‘blocked’ OIG auditors from reviewing former President Donald Trump’s security protocols.”[11]
Most disturbing, there is evidence of mistrust within the Secret Service ranks. For its mission to survive, the leadership must be overhauled, top to bottom. It will require a thorough assessment to redefine its mission and test its capability in the face of the emerging threats from enemy states. This cannot be accomplished in-house.
Following the Capitol protests in 2020, USCP Chief Sund implemented a pro-active intelligence gathering approach but received no threat intelligence by the FBI, Secret Service, DHS and DCMP. Sund stated “there was no indication that a well-coordinated, armed assault on the Capitol might occur on January 6.” This assessment was based on intelligence or the lack thereof provided to Sund. On January 4th and January 5th, Sund hosted two intelligence meetings with the USCP Intelligence and Inter-Agency Coordination Division and with a dozen of the top law enforcement and military officials from Washington, D.C., including the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the National Guard.[12]
Sund stated: "During both meetings, no entity, including the FBI, provided any intelligence indicating that there would be a coordinated violent attack on the United States Capitol by thousands of well-equipped armed insurrectionists."
In the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s (DHSIG’s) Final Report: The Secret Service's Preparation for, and Response to, the Events of January 6, 2021 dated July 13, 2024, by Joseph V. Cuffari, Ph.D., the Inspector General reported intelligence failures and policy related operational failures.[13] Six recommendations were made to improve preparedness between the Secret Service and the USCP. A few have been met.
The burning question—with this backdrop, how can the Congress and law enforcement officials adequately rely on intelligence agency reporting, the current administration’s support (or the lack thereof) and media reporting to prepare for potential disruptions in 2025? To effectively prepare for the State of the Union, the Secret Service should establish specific and stringent MOUs with the FBI and the I&A to ensure they share timely and thorough intelligence impacting their protectees and NSSE’s in the future. This was not done prior to January 6, 2021. For example, security planning for NSSE events in DC should include close collaboration with military counterparts. This will ensure the DCNG and the DCMP are able to more seamlessly expedite crowd control responses. Critically, an agreed upon communications (tested) protocol among these agencies is required.
It has been observed by many law enforcement authorities the Secret Service is operating under a flawed threat model, i.e. a 1960’s era lone assassination threat. Today’s Secret Service has not fully embraced emerging technologies. The agency has not studied terrorist threat methodologies to see its benefit in varying environments.
The Secret Service published its <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf"> Secret Service Threat Assessment Centers Mass Attacks in Public Places Guidance in January 2023 through its National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC). This guidance focuses primarily on behavioral threat assessment metrics based on meta-data gleaned from 173 shooting attacks. It appears the current protective training model does not fully incorporate this guidance and is based more on reactive threat responses rather than proactive threat identification. Very little, if any study and/or training focuses on terrorist pre-attack behaviors i.e. recognizing and mitigating Islamic radicalization, attack planning (target selection, probing, testing), the purchase of precursor bomb making materials and countering multi-coordinated attacks.
Matthew Crooks clearly defeated the Secret Service at its own game. How is this possible? Are the Secret Service advance procedures too canned, too predictable? Strategic planning organizations in the public and private sector, especially in high threat environments, employ Red Team planning. At a basic level this means considering the adversary’s perspective and attack plan. Protectors should simulate attacks as an adversary would and fortify against them with security planning. In other words, wear two hats—your “good guy hat and the bad guy hat.” This is fairly obvious to seasoned military planners and strategists, However, since this strategy appears to be absent from the security planning where two assassination attempts occurred in Pennsylvania and Florida in 2024, it requires review. In simple terms…advance planners need to ask themselves: If I were a shooter or bomber, how would I identify the security plan’s vulnerabilities? What weakness would I exploit? Security planners need to ask what are we doing to fix them? This needs to be an evolving, on-going process. The Army does this on a continuing basis.
There is no evidence the Secret Service conducts any substantive Red Team exercises. The irony is Crooks, the would-be assassin who shot at Trump in Butler, PA and Ryan Routh, who attempted an assassination from a sniper position along a fence line at the Trump International Golf Course at West Palm Beach, FL, conducted better pre-attack planning than the Secret Service’s protective (counterattack) advance security team. Routh’s ability to get within easy shooting range, and remain virtually undetected for12-hours, exposed many other security operational weaknesses. To be clear both assassination attempts, one an actual AK shooting and one pre-empted, were catastrophic failures. This is a jolting and tragic wake-up call. Crooks’ and Routh’s budgets were probably less than $500 respectively. The Secret Service Presidential Campaigns and NSSE budget is reported to be ~$73.3 million from the Office and Management and Data. Clearly the security failures are not due to a lack of money.
What if the attacks at Butler or West Palm Beach had been planned by well-trained terrorists using multiple, simultaneous attack methods as witnessed in the series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France? The Secret Service and the IC at large should be acutely focused on the possibility of diversionary, multitargeted attack scenario planning prior to any major event. Attack methods used by terrorists seen in many asymmetrical attacks seen recently worldwide should be planned for. Other salient examples include Mumbai (2009), Brussels (2016) and Barcelona (2017). DHS has published planning guidance to identify and prevent Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attacks (2018). Would the Secret Service be able to detect an attack plan like these let alone respond to them?
Since the 9/11 attacks billions of tax dollars have been invested in defense strategy revisions, police, military and emergency responder training, communications upgrades and field exercises to better equip all concerned to address evolving threats. The National Response Framework (2019) defines five core capacities to guide the training of the response community: prevent, protect, mitigate, respond, recover. The purpose is to “better integrate government and local response efforts.” Simply stated, all security partners need to focus more on prevention and work as a cohesive team. It appears these capacities were not incorporated in the security plan at Butler, PA or West Palm Beach, FL.
This guidance needs to be incorporated and operationally reinforced into all joint security efforts in the field; not only in training.
When operationally required, agents from other DHS agencies selected to support Secret Service protective details should be required to meet the same protective training metrics required of Secret Service agents. The required training hours should be increased as outlined in the Secret Service Fiscal Years 2021-2025 Human Capital Strategic Plan.
The Secret Service needs to redefine its protective mission. The current policies and procedures are based on dated threat models. The old threat models guiding the Secret Service culture are myopic and limit creative thinking. More effective proactive strategies, policies and training that match evolving attack methods are needed:
· Move the Secret Service back to the U.S. Treasury Department;
· Re-examine basic security procedures;
· Recognize and respond to lone shooter profile behaviors;
· Incorporate Red Team planning and training;
· Review lone shooter and coordinated terrorist attack methodologies;
· Develop security advance training to include preventive and deterrent attack strategies;
· Require the IC to proactively and thoroughly brief the Secret Service PID and protective details with ongoing and timely protectee threat intelligence;
· Develop specific integration protocols with public safety counterparts;
· Require a Secret Service supervisor partnered with the local jurisdiction law enforcement supervisor to review the security advance Incident Action Plans (IAPs) and visit each site to be visited prior to the protectee’s arrival.
· Conduct post event hot washes and train to correct missteps;
· Partner with elite military forces, i.e. Delta and Seal teams to revise a range of protective measures and training;
· Reinstate annual physical medical screening with a coronary emphasis;
· Reinstate mandatory quarterly physical fitness testing for all gun carrying personnel;
· Develop scalable protective training based on emerging attack methodologies with a terrorist focus; and
· Specifically study and create protective training scenarios that identify terrorist simultaneous attack planning targeting routes, site access/egress locations, command posts, agent and law enforcement personnel staging areas and respective equipment.
Equally troubling, the recommendations set forth by the 435-page U.S. Secret Service: An Agency in Crisis from December 2014 (after serious security failures prompted this inquiry) as of this writing, have yet to be fully implemented. Conspicuously absent among them remains—the failure of protective detail agents to complete consistent training—“at least 12% of work hours by fiscal year 2025.” According to Jason Chaffetz, the agency has woefully failed to achieve this training target. He says the Secret Service has been on notice since 2015 to implement effective changes, namely training and accountability to prevent the failures. Many key recommendations have not been met.[14]
The collective observations and recommendations outlined above are further delineated, along with others, in the FINAL REPORT OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS completed by the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump, dated December 5, 2024. This report was issued by Chairman Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jason Crow (D-CO).[15] These recommendations should be prioritized with elite military forces. Establish scalable protective survey plans that can effectively adapt to changing locales and environments.
The world of team sports provides a compelling metaphor for how games are won. Team members are assigned positions based on ability and experience. They rehearse their plays incessantly until they get it right. Success in the protective security arena requires the same focus.
If the Secret Service team expects to win their zero-fail mission, they will need to rebuild a foundation of trust—first. Leadership deficits, disparate experience levels, inconsistent training, dated technology and other security advance omissions are fixable. Restoring trust among their fellow agents and with their brothers and sisters in blue and critically with their prized asset—the protectee—poses their biggest challenge. Winning is impossible without trust.
Is the Country Being Effectively Protected by its Intelligence Agencies?
To fully answer this, a hard look at the intelligence agencies and their successes and failures need to be critically examined in 2025. There have been more than 70 successful terrorist interdictions since 9/11. Unfortunately there has been an increase of serious failures in the last eight years, many preventable, in the homeland that dilute these successes. Many observers and media outlets are reporting partisan politics has rendered the agencies responsible for investigating and preventing many attacks in the past four years less proactive and less effective. Congressional committees and Inspectors General reports conducted in response to whistleblower testimony and media reporting show the FBI reallocated its resources from its primary mission to protect the nation from domestic and international terrorism. Their focus has shifted from cyber-threats, organized crime, violent crimes, human trafficking etc. to lesser crimes with a political bent. This shift in focus by the FBI along with collaboration with DHS has added to the rise of Domestic Terrorism.[16] According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) there has been a 357% increase in domestic terrorism from 2013 – 2023.[17]
After the 9/11 attacks on September 11, 2001, a candid review of the nation’s intelligence failures—contributing causes, i.e. agency information sharing dysfunction and the “siloed” structure of the IC; namely the CIA, FBI, NIA, DIA and the NSA was reviewed. The 9/11 Commission Report, released on July 22, 2004 examined these failures in detail.[18] Notably, the consensus finding was and unfortunately remains today—the intelligence agencies lack imagination and do not effectively share domestic and foreign threat information, particularly with a terrorist nexus. Bureaucratic and administrative restrictions delay the release of “sanitized” threat information that is in large part, not immediately useful by its consumers. Among the 9/11 Commission’s many recommendations—create a DHS in an effort to centralize 22 different federal agencies into one department. The intent was to unify security operations to be more responsive and less siloed in its handling of, sharing and responding to threat information to the homeland.
Unfortunately, this has not happened. DHS has been widely criticized for being stymied by bureaucratic dysfunction. Many have observed the amalgamation of the 22 agencies, in many cases, has had the opposite effect…these agencies, many of which with a more than a 100-year history, were not fully on board to “play in one sandbox” and share their tools risking the loss of their respective agency eminence.[19] As a result some argue many agencies hold onto information to be able to control investigations, justify funding, etc. Several studies show the goal of more effective information sharing has not been achieved despite the creation of several Presidential Directives enacted post 9/11 and the creation of more than 80 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs).[20]
The numerous recent intelligence failures we are seeing and continue to experience is alarming. The conclusions of many Inspectors General reports and House Committee Hearings have revealed the key intelligence agencies, CIA, FBI and others are not fully effective protecting Americans. It has been proven these agencies have been weaponized against conservatives and directly at Donald Trump and his family. This leads us to only one conclusion —our IC is broken. This is supported by the footnoted documents referenced in this writing. Among the many glaring facts: 51 former intelligence officials declared the Hunter Biden laptop, disinformation—later proven to be false. Further, the CIA admitted many of the 51 signatories were paid CIA contractors.[21] [22]
Several FBI, IRS and Secret Service whistleblowers including former FBI agents Richard Stout and Nicole Parker (and many others) have publicly called out the credibility of the FBI; specifically the leadership who have not prioritized the core mission of the FBI.[23] On December 9, 2024, Senator Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Wray citing as many as 60 examples of the FBI’s blatant failures to uphold the rule of law and obstruct the work of the Congress. The letter stated, “the FBI has shown an outright distain for congressional oversight during your tenure.”[24] Instead, recent FBI Directors, Comey and Wray chose to violate their oaths denying fair and due process rights to several hundreds of citizens and Brady rule violations for political purposes. Whistleblower testimony corroborates the FBI leadership, at many levels, were aware of this but continued this blatant dereliction of duty anyway.
It has been empirically shown the FBI and the DOJ, under the Biden Administration, have implemented an ongoing two-tier system of justice strategy targeting Republicans at large, prominent conservatives and Donald Trump while ignoring instances of clear federal statute violations (with undeniable probable cause) by the Democrats and leftists. “These include pay-to-play schemes by the Bidens and the Clintons.”[25] Not the least of which are the 18 instances of arson and vandalism targeting pregnancy resource and other faith-based centers by the group Jane’s Revenge which the FBI has not addressed.[26]
Basically, the FBI has shifted its focus and resources from counter-intelligence, established terrorist threats, China hacking our nation’s IT infrastructure, sex trafficking of minors and organized crime to targeting Catholics, declaring parents attending school board meetings ”domestic terrorists,” investigating thousands of January 6th attendees and protesters and arresting pro-life demonstrators. Among the most egregious investigations and warrant executions was the unprecedented search of former President Trump’s residence, staging evidence and doctoring photos in August 2022 to justify prosecutions.[27]
Equally egregious, FBI failures identified by Senator Grassley included serious threats posed by foreign actors treated with tepid urgency if at all. For example, the FBI did not thoroughly vet Afghan evacuees under the Operations Allies Welcome (OAW), at least 50 of which were later flagged with “potentially security concerns.” This and the “open border” policy of the Biden administration, the dilution of ICE resources, restricting ICE’s arrest and deportation enforcement purview, defunding the police and weak enforcement of crimes committed by a high number of migrants entering the U.S. illegally has increased the nation’s vulnerability.[28] On June 25, 2024, DHS identified more than 400 crossed the U.S. border with an ISIS-affiliated network.[29]
Another disturbing example of the egregious failures and unlawful government oversight is documented in Senator Ron Wyden’s (D-ORE.) recent release of documents confirming the NSA and the FBI are unlawfully purchasing Americans’ internet browsing records and personal data.[30]
Restoring faith in America’s intelligence agencies to prevent what we have witnessed for at least the last eight (8) years will require significant reforms.[31] Essentially, there is a call for more transparency and bi-partisan oversight across the board.[32] Various national polls reflect more than 60% of Americans do not trust the government—especially the FBI.[33]
The GAO found the greatest number of domestic terrorism attacks are committed by either racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, (this includes homegrown violent extremism) many of whom have been radicalized since 2010.[34] A few notable examples include:
· May 3, 2024 - Two Jordanian foreign nationals attempted to force their way onto Marine Base Quantico. Both were in the country unlawfully;
· May 9, 2024 – Trevor Bickford of Maine received a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to kill police officers in Times Square in 2022. He claimed he wanted “to wage Jihad and kill as many targets as possible;” and
· June 9, 2024 – 8 Tajikistan nationals were arrested in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles with ties to ISIS plotting terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Recent intelligence failures are compounded by disjointed inter-agency information sharing, fewer proactive responses to threat intelligence, poor monitoring of social media posts and not responding to credible law enforcement reporting. A key policy failure is the open U.S. border and restricting the Border Patrol’s ability to identify illegal crossings and account for “gotaways.” Collectively, these intelligence failures have led to increases in a wide range of crimes as follows:
· A resurgence of terrorist attacks;
· Human trafficking;
· Drug trafficking;
· Attacks targeting law enforcement officers and their equipment;
· Homegrown violent extremism;
· Lone wolf attacks at mass gatherings;
· Hate crimes;
· Attacks on churches;
· Active school shooter attacks;
· Attacks on family planning centers; and
· Cyber-attacks/Ransomware attacks.
Fixing this will require honest, bipartisan commitment. The IC, above all, will need to be accountable to their staffs and the American people. The proposed remedies (some of which cited below) are required to ensure the respective intelligence agencies are transparent with the appropriate federal and local law enforcement agencies. This is needed to prevent a repeat of the abuses identified earlier that targeted a variety of individuals and groups by the Biden administration.
· Establish a special bipartisan committee with full access to all intelligence and threats to ensure proportional decisions and actions to protect the homeland are made above politics and reviewed before being implemented;
· Ensure the investigations conducted by the intelligence agencies are strictly within their jurisdictional purviews;
· Assess the effectiveness of the collaborative sharing information practices and formal agreements between the FBI and DHS. A 2023 GAO study shows threat information is not shared effectively by them and is not immediately useful. This GAO report identified a key reason for this serious information sharing dysfunction:[35]
“FBI officials told us they did not use the data DHS collects on domestic terrorism incidents because they weren’t aware DHS was collecting it. DHS officials in turn told us they didn’t share their incident data with their FBI counterparts because they weren’t asked for it.”
· Verify that any unmasking follow CIA & FBI rules. The names of many U.S. citizens were improperly released instead of or with foreign targets;[36]
· Enact strict verification processes to prevent using circular reporting by “creating” false and damaging information, leaking it to the press and then opening investigations based on that. It has been established the FBI under Director Comey and other FBI officials engaged in this practice; and
· Enact strict adherence to verification processes to ensure the basis of any Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application requests are factual. Rampant abuse of the FISA process by Director Comey and other FBI officials (from 2016 – 2017 and beyond) has been confirmed by the DOJ IG.[37]
On December 9, 2019, Attorney General William Barr stated the DOJ IG determined the evidence put forth to the FISA Court to secure warrants to surveil the Trump campaign and his administration “were not factual, omitted consistently exculpatory information.” AG Barr further stated: “ The malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process;”[38] [39]
Looking Forward
As we begin 2025 and we assess the state of our government, the state of our safety, the state of our security, our sovereignty and most important, America’s pre-eminence on the planet; now is a great opportunity to work to rejuvenate the bedrock principles that make us the sterling example of freedom and strength. It is possible to reignite the nation’s status as the “Shining City on a Hill” as President Reagan described it.
It will take an honest commitment for the new Trump administration to set things right. In the last several years many of our agency heads and politicians put egos and politics ahead of the nation’s guiding principles. How many of them were boy scouts and forgot the first point of the scout law?: “A scout is trustworthy.” How many attended military academies and committed to the credo?: “A cadet shall not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate anyone the does.” How many swore allegiance to the United States and their Oath of Office (5 US Code Sec. 3331)?: “I do solemnly swear I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...I take this obligation freely without purpose of evasion..."
If there was ever a time in the history of our nation when accountability, honest introspection and reform is critically needed...it is NOW!
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/us/politics/democrats-anti-trump-battle-plan.html
[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-nominees-confirmation-delay-senate-democrats/
[7] https://www.secretservice.gov/protection/events/credentialing
[8] This basic requirement was not included or thoroughly implemented per USSS protective operational SOPs prior to two assassination attempts targeting Trump.
[14] https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oversight-USSS-Report.pdf
[16] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104720-highlights.pdf
[17] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104720
[18] https://9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Exec.pdf
[19] https://www.thoughtco.com/department-of-homeland-security-4156795
[20] https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114425/witnesses/HHRG-117-JU08-Wstate-JonesS-20220217.pdf
[21] https://www.newsweek.com/hunter-biden-laptop-jim-jordan-facebook-disinformation-twitter-1767369
[23] https://ijr.com/richard-stout-how-to-reform-our-politically-weaponized-fbi-and-restore-public-trust/
[24] Letter from Chairman Charles Grassley, Se. Comm. on Fin., to Director Wray (Dec. 9, 2024), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_fbi_-_failures.pdf
[26] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/zero-arrests-16-janes-revenge-attacks-pro-life-organizations
[29] https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CHS-10.3.24-Terror-Threat-Snapshot.pdf
[30] Senator Ron Wyden (D-ORE.) recent report by Ars Technica states the NSA has admiied to buying records
[34] https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it
[35] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104720-highlights.pdf
[36] Lt. General Flynn and other Trump administration officials were improperly unmasked during 2016 – 2017.
[37] Section 702 authorizes targeted foreign intelligence information collection related to terrorism. U.S. persons may not be targeted and their names indiscriminately used without a specific nexus to terrorism.
[39] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4012650-fbi-misused-surveillance-tool-fisa-section-702/
