Secret Service Agents Were in Contact With Far-Right Oath Keepers - A new report reveals members of the Secret Service were in communication with the group’s radical leader, Stewart Rhodes

gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 640 points –
Secret Service Agents Were in Contact With Far-Right Oath Keepers
newrepublic.com
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Remember Champ biting specific members of the secret service?

Dogs know. Dogs always know.

That was actually Major, their younger dog at the time. Champ was their elderly dog who died a couple years ago. They since got a younger pup, Commander, and he too, has been biting staffers, but I don't know if they revealed which agencies the victims work for. Maybe Commander is copying what his elder brother does, but iirc Major doesn't live in the White House too often nowadays. He might just have the same intuition.

In case anyone, like me, wants a source for Pence refusing to get in the car with the Secret Service. It’s from the book “I Alone Can Fix It.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/26/pence-car-raskin-comments/

The “terrified” part is speculation, but potentially true.

I wonder if they would have used 'the VP has been kidnapped by Antifa!' as justification for the insurrection act.

They were chanting "hang Pence" and literally, physically building a gallows. The intentions were quite clear.

Do we have any proof that the messages were deleted on the instruction of the White House? I've always thought they arranged the mass-deletion on their own - but it was a very busy time and I might well have missed the bit about them being ordered to delete them.

Well it helped Trump, was against policy, and they answered to him.

All true. However, there's a difference between being told/ordered to do a thing, and thinking (on your own), "Hey if I do this thing it'll cover my ass and help my side". OP is claiming they were told to do it - and that may be true, but I'd like some proof toward that.

What's more likely? That they all independently had the same idea to commit the same crime at the same time, or that their ringleader told them to do it, so they did it?

If they used SMS those records are still around.

Or did they use something else?

This is likely bullshit, your milage may vary...but I though they used encrypted black berries. Its on a private network/vpn separate from civilian traffic.

It seems like Trump threw a fit about it at one time.

Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses

1 more...

Shouldn't background checks for Top Secret clearances that involve employees in closer contact with important government officials screen out those with links to radical ideologies?

Bold of you to assume the Trump administration would've been screening them out.

There's a question on the SF-86

https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/01/12/extremist-groups-and-your-clearance/

The vetting can be done as was done with the National Guard deployed to DC:

https://www.rand.org/blog/2021/02/what-the-capitol-siege-means-for-the-future-of-security.html

Even National Guard members deployed to serve as an extra layer of security at the inauguration were vetted by the FBI to ensure no infiltration by potential insider threats; 12 National Guard members were removed due to security concerns. One Army reservist with a current security clearance and access to a naval munitions depot in New Jersey was also arrested in connection with the assault on the Capitol.

It feels like one of the flaws in the system is that, while we'd want the agents who surround the president to be vetted more than almost anyone else, it's the executive branch that's responsible and apparently the president can give the okay for someone who doesn't otherwise pass, as we saw happen for his kids. What's to stop a corrupt president from having corrupt USSS agents?

Do you guys not remember how the SS "accidentally" deleted all the texts from SS agents on the day of Jan 6th? "Whoops! Our bad!" Heads should have rolled big time!

I thought the same thing, these guys had a lot of confidence in doing what they did. They must have had that confidence for a reason,. It also explains the appearance of not having an end plan, if they believed the next stage was not their part of the coup. The next part of the plan we may never actually learn but damn we need to find out where the government has been compromised.

the Secret Service unironically is the reason the insurrectionists didn't reach the senators/reps

Why are they getting credit? It was capital police who finally opened fire when the rioters got to the hallway with the congressional offices.

the Secret Service were the ones inside, who for example shot out into the hallway from the door of the senate when the MAGA traitors tried to storm the senate chambers

Unless you've got a source I'm not familiar with, the only time anyone opened fire on the protestors was in the hall where Ashley Babbitt died, and that was confirmed to be Capital Police.

The least cool eye patch wearer.

Well, colour me surprised 9 ways to Sunday and fuck me sideways. You don't say that police attend to associate with right wing terrorists. /s

The degree of rot keeps getting more and more astounding. I say this as someone who is completely unsurprised. Contradiction? Yeah. Both are true at the same time.

Cops regularly reach out to far right groups for information

Also, far right groups recruit cops and ex-military. The venn diagram of law enforcement to right-wing militia groups has a lot of overlap.

Without reading I thought he was a poor man's Nick Fury cosplay....

Otherwise known as being undercover?

Edit. I think I confused the SS with the FBI

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/us/politics/oath-keepers-trial-january-6.html

Nope, it says "unofficial" in the article.

This fuck was an Oath Keeper himself.

Yeah, I was thinking of the FBI

WASHINGTON — An F.B.I. informant who was embedded for months in the inner circle of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, is likely to testify as a defense witness at the seditious conspiracy trial of Mr. Rhodes in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The informant, Greg McWhirter, served as the Oath Keepers’ vice president but was secretly reporting to the F.B.I. about the group’s activities in the weeks and months leading up to the Capitol attack, according to two people familiar with the matter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/us/politics/oath-keepers-trial-january-6.html