Secret Service depletes funds to pay agents because of Trump’s frequent travel, large family
(Worthy News) – The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.
Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.
The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas. [ Source (Read More…) ]
USA Today runs by the fake news story playbook
You’ve heard it out there. You know the story already. USA Today “broke” it in a huge scoop on Monday: “Exclusive: Secret Service depletes funds to pay agents because of Trump’s frequent travel, large family.”
CNN got all wee-weed up with the “exclusive”: “Secret Service can’t pay agents for Trump and his family, report says.” Lots of other mainstream media outlets followed the salacious story — Trump and his family are bankrupting America!
But it turns out the whole story was just plain old fake news.
Mr. Alles, in clarification to USA Today’s breathless report, later said that funding for roughly 1,100 agents working overtime in 2017 is not an issue “that can be attributed to the current administration’s protection requirements alone, but rather has been an ongoing issue for nearly a decade due to an overall increase in operational tempo.”
So, wait, it’s NOT Trump? It’s been happening for “nearly a decade” — so, uh, starting in, oh, say, 2009, 2010? When Barack Obama was president. [ Source (Read More…) ]