Still trying to figure out what to make of this odd story, which I first read on ABC News:
Four members of the United States Secret Service, including one member who was on first lady Jill Biden’s protective detail, were suspended after they allegedly associated with and were provided gifts from two men who are accused of pretending to be Homeland Security Investigations agents.
The two men, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, were charged with impersonating federal law enforcement officers and allegedly provided members of the Secret Service gifts such as rent-free apartments totaling $40,000, surveillance systems, a drone, law enforcement paraphernalia and more, court documents said.
Josh Marshall at TPM read the affidavit and elaborates:
Also, I’ve now read through the affidavit supporting the arrest of these two men. Wow. It’s much more elaborate than what I’d understood from the first press write ups. It’s hard for me to imagine this wasn’t the work of some foreign government or a private company working for one. If i’m understanding the account it goes something like this. There’s an apartment building in Washington, DC many residents of which are members of various federal law enforcement agencies. Not only were these two men impersonating federal law enforcement officers they had also managed to gain access to or almost be running security for the building. They appear to have heavily wired the building to surveil it. They were also renting or somehow controlling a substantial number of apartments in the building. This is the pool of apartments from which they gave free accommodations to multiple Secret Service officers. (I think all of those were from the uniformed division, not the agents.) WTF, right?
WTF indeed. As Marshall notes, in addition to being tasked with protecting the POTUS, VPOTUS and other high-level federal officials, the Secret Service is also charged with protecting the country’s financial infrastructure. And yet agents got sucked into a scam by accepting extremely large “gifts,” and this went on for more than a year before someone else noticed by happenstance?
I’m not sure how something like that happens without massive institutional failure. I’m no expert, but it might be time to burn that agency down and start from scratch.
Open thread.
dlwchico
Suspended? Shouldn’t they just be fired?
Every shitty little job I have ever had included training where they told you it was wrong to accept gifts.
No way did these people not know they were fucking up when they accepted all this and that there would be some quid pro quo expected in return.
sukabi
As always, FOLLOW THE MONEY. Who was paying the two that were arrested. Too much money involved for it to be just a couple of scammers….
sukabi
@dlwchico: yes, they should have their security clearances pulled and be fired immediately.
Brachiator
Crazy story. Nice little honey trap.
It will be interesting to see how this story plays out.
Is Hunter Biden’s laptop involved? //
Baud
Put the U.S. Postal Inspection Agents in charge of everything.
The Moar You Know
My suspicion is that this was building up to an attempt on both the President and VP.
And I agree with the WTF thing about “gifts”. They drill this into everyone’s head; Fed employee or contractor, you are absolutely not to take them and report any attempts whatsoever. Free housing and nobody said anything? These people are too stupid and/or corrupt to work for the government.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
less off-topic than pre-topic, the Secret Service is indeed fucked up
Ornato is, per google, still a high-ranking member of the service, in charge of training now.
Carol Leonnig wrote a book about how fucked up they are– here’s a YouTube of Nicolle Wallace running down some of the 1/6 cheerleading, as in pro-insurrectionist, by Secret Service agents. I suspect there’s a lot of the same at the FBI and other federal LE agencies.
Another Scott
This seems to be a perennial issue with the SS. I vaguely recall a scandal about agents visiting hookers in Central or South America not that long ago.
Of course foreign governments will try to compromise a President’s protection detail. Few people have as much direct contact with him (or her). These employees/agents should know the rules and follow them scrupulously and suffer swift and severe consequences when they don’t. There’s absolutely no excuse for this kind of crap.
I pity the fool, er, Grr…,
Scott.
MisterDancer
Wasn’t there a scandal/situation w/GOP Congresspeople around Lobbyists paying for their housing when in DC? Maybe even tied to Evangelicals? I’ve tried to look for this multiple times and evidence evades me, but I recall it really well.
If so, this feels of a piece with that issue.
JoyceH
@The Moar You Know: Since this began in 2020 I think it’s more likely an intel operation. Whoever this was behind it all, Trump was their guy.
Chetan Murthy
@The Moar You Know: And it’s true at every big company, too. I know this from two big companies I worked at, and I’m sure many, many commenters can confirm: you’re “trained” every year on all the rules regarding even the appearance of bribery, and how you must report these things instanter and never, ever, ever accept such a “gift”. Never. And yet ….. And yeah, it’s pretty smelly, that these agents weren’t terminated (or put on unpaid leave) on-the-spot. I haven’t read the charging documents (IANAL, couldn’t make head nor tail out of it anyway) but perhaps the agents were all cooperating and were witnesses? That’s the only circumstance under which I could imagine they aren’t fired.
Roger Moore
I think this is reflective of a broader problem of corruption in law enforcement. Police are used to getting all kinds of special treatment. There’s especially an expectation that other law enforcement will give them all kinds of “professional courtesy”, like always giving a warning and never a ticket no matter how badly they drive. I think that is a serious flaw in their thinking these people exploited. They are so used to low-level corruption in their dealing with other law enforcement, they lowered their guard and moved on to high-level corruption.
Raoul Paste
This was going on for a year?? I’ve also read that these two imposters had their own black GMC-SUV just as other federal security agents do
There was some serious money behind this effort, whatever it was
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Aren’t they the ones who arrested Bannon? You do not fuck with those dudes.
Baud
@Another Scott: I see what you did there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MisterDancer: The Family?
just googling to find Sharlet’s name, I didn’t know about that Netflix documentary. I may watch that this weekend.
MisterDancer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank you! Tucking this away for future reference…
Splitting Image
@dlwchico:
I worked at an advertising company where a member of the sales staff ran a training session in which she told the entire production staff that only dummies believed this and that smarter people (like the sales reps) understood that a little gift-giving back and forth is what made the world go ’round.
A couple of years later, the new owners of the company audited the whole thing and discovered that the sales reps were costing the company millions by letting their favourite clients run up big bills and comping free ads left and right. The worst offenders all got sacked.
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
This kind of deep penetration attempt is rarely targeted at just one thing. Just having people inside is a goal in and of itself. Once you have the organization penetrated, the sky is the limit.
Mike in NC
I read “Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service” by Carol Leonnig this year. It sure sounds like a fucked up organization in many ways. Basically a bunch of overwhelmingly white male cops who are as corrupt as most other law enforcement agencies. Many of them were totally dedicated MAGA types who loved the Fat Orange Clown. Those are the ones hanging out with him at Mar-A-Lago.
mrmoshpotato
@Splitting Image:
Of course!
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
ISTR that the Postal Inspectors are often brought in when they want to investigate another law enforcement agency. Some of this is probably because they are really good, but some of it is because they tend to be insular and are less likely to have close relations with other law enforcement that might taint their objectivity.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Hmm
This reads like two Bullshitodo masters trying to play undercover cops. Also sounds like someone in the Secret Service got there be douchbaggery afoot.
This
Sounds like grifers rather than spies.
TonyG
@dlwchico: Absolutely. The various IT jobs that I’ve had during my “career” including training to the effect that we shouldn’t even accept a free lunch (about about $20) unless it’s approved by the boss. I wonder whether there’s any aspect of our society that hasn’t been totally corrupted? (Except for Ballon Juice, of course.)
Betty
@Gin & Tonic: Bringing up Bannon reminded me of his buddy, Guo, who, I just read, played a key role in providing phony info on Hunter Biden. He is wealthy. So one possibity?
Roger Moore
@Splitting Image:
Even if some people believe this, in a halfway decently run organization they’d know to keep their mouths shut. My employer makes it clear not only that you aren’t supposed to take gifts but that you’re supposed to report anything you think is unethical. If somebody ran a counter-seminar in which they preached the advantages of corruption, I would expect them to be reported. That they weren’t says the company wasn’t trying very hard to keep the corruption in check.
Spanky
@Mike in NC:
And preventing someone from serving him a summons, as I read on this here blog not 2 days ago
ETA Here ya go, if you can see through all the ads Mediaite throws up.
RSA
In the Department of Defense, government employees do ethics training and submit a financial disclosure form, annually. The latter includes a requirement to report any gifts (or travel reimbursements) worth over $415 from one source.
I’m surprised at the possibility that the Secret Service doesn’t go beyond self-reporting. If they do, I’m surprised they didn’t find something so obvious.
JPL
Why don’t we know more about the individuals involved?
PaulWartenberg
Part of me wonders – since the Secret Service is under control of the Treasury – if the corruption from atop during the trump administration (Hi, Munchin!!!) set up what happened here. We do need to find out how long this scam had been operating, if there were any others similar to it – a full auditing of every agent is necessary now due to this clear breach of ethics within the agency – and just who the hell was funding this shit.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Isn’t affinity fraud often the best way to ensnare the smartest and most honest people?
Peale
@RSA: I’m not exactly certain the timing on this. If they caught it within a year, they have moved very swiftly by investigation standards.
trollhattan
Fired schmired, this sounds criminal to me and perhaps long stints in Club Fed.
StringOnAStick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Postal Inspection Agents you say? Who now thinks that this is the random event that got them looking more closely at the ones who were just exposed?
Baud
@PaulWartenberg:
I thought Secret Service was moved from Treasury to Homeland Security.
lowtechcyclist
I’d thought that was still true until a couple of days ago, but apparently the Secret Service got moved over to Homeland Security when DHS was created
ETA: Baud beat me by seconds.
PaulWartenberg
@Baud: but get rid of DeJoy first.
trollhattan
@StringOnAStick:
When a Postal Agent cancels you it means something completely different than Tucker Carlson means.
PaulWartenberg
@lowtechcyclist:
Oh, that is an interesting twist of affairs, my apologies for not keeping up with that.
Okay. So there’s clear corruption at the Dept of Homeland Security. TIME TO BLOW THAT SHIT UP.
PaulWartenberg
Postal Inspectors are the ones who blew this all open?
Ah, I think back kindly to the days of Postmaster General Wilford Brimley, who BY GOD GOT THINGS DONE.
JPL
@lowtechcyclist: That’s why his name is Baud.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@StringOnAStick: I think it’s pair of Walter Mitty’s who were pretending to be cops to other cops and some cops inclding the Secret Service were dumb enough to fall for it until they saw these guys beat up the mailman. Then the Postal Police got involved.
Sort of an new twist on the Stolen Honor scams.
Xantar
@PaulWartenberg: US Secret Service is now part of Homeland Security, not Treasury.
Edit: I’ve been beaten to it.
Martin
Story is wild. Not just the Secret Service but other federal and local law enforcement agencies. Having a hard time seeing this as a scam – a lot of money and time got invested here with seemingly no payoff. Looks more like a very weird spying operation. Can’t imagine any competent foreign government would back this (he says noting that everyone thought Russia had a competent military) so maybe a domestic group? This feels more like the plot to kidnap Whitmer – some Hollywood action movie plot come to life.
smith
Thinking about corruption in the Secret Service reminds of something I’ve been curious about ever since the failed coup: what were the conspirators planning to do about Biden and Harris? I know I heard talk about “arresting” them on unspecified charges, but they were by 1/6 under Secret Service protection, and Joe had wisely insisted on agents he could trust. If the coup had gone ahead, would we have seen a shootout between Secret Service agents? With convenient collateral damage? Just considering the might-have-been makes me a little sick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Really OT: has anyone posited that trump and Putin bonded over a share taste in interior decorator?
ian
@Spanky:
Not to speak well of those goofs, but if some rando showed up to serve any ex-president papers I would expect the S.S. to deny them access. They have no way of knowing if it is legit or not, and I would not be the least bit surprised at the number of random ways people try to sneak past them. With all the failings we see in the news right now about the S.S., this part seems like them actually doing their job.
Geminid
I am with the Ms. Cracker on the first part. As to the second, I don’t like the current set up of the Department of Homeland Security either, but I don’t see evidence of “massive institutional failure” here. There may turn out to be a lot more to this odd story, but if there’s not it’s a pretty small lever to effect radical change at DHS.
I expect, though, that Democratic Congressional commitee leaders will want to hear from DHS Secretary Mayorkis soon about this matter, and will draw their own conclusions.
Sister Golden Bear
@Another Scott:
From what I’ve read from criminal defense attorney Twitter, if the US Postal Inspectors are involved, you’re definitely, irrevocably, going to prison, fucked.
catclub
@mrmoshpotato:
wow, usually its ‘The whistleblower was the only one who went to jail.’
opiejeanne
@TonyG: My dad used to get gifts from people who had endured his testing and review of their products, along with thank you notes because he always told them not just why the electrical item had failed safety tests, but also how to fix the problem(s). He rarely passed any product the first time, because so many really dangerous things* came into the lab, and part of his job was to be creative in breaking these items, the way a kid or an idiot would, and he had some really funny stories at supper about how they finally figured out how to break a big color tv CRT. He worked for the City of Los Angeles, and sometime in the early 60s the city told everyone that accepting gifts from clients was a no-no. There was some huge scandal that year that precipitated the announcement, but before that was announced it never occurred to me that the gifts we got could have influenced him: big bottles of whiskey at Christmas, which he’d trade to someone else for a box of See’s candy so that everyone in the family could have some. A Japanese firm sent us some almost pretty candy dishes made of stainless steel three years running.
OTOH, my husband worked for a while as an inspector for CalTrans, and a contractor tried to buy his approval of compaction tests with a case of whiskey. The idiot had placed each bottle X feet apart, just past the point of each compaction test, the idea being that if it passed he could have the bottle. He told the guy to pick them up and get rid of them.
*I’ll never forget how upset and angry he was about the teenager who was electrocuted in a bathtub who was listening to records. The metal arm that held the records in place came into contact with a bare wire inside the player while she was touching it. I think that was the case that closed down White Front for selling the product illegally, because the item had not been approved by either Underwriters or the LA lab, or whatever the third lab was at the time.
MisterDancer
Free Housing seems to be a gap in “things you should report” for some reason. It’s why I was trying to recall The Family and their ownership of the C Street building where they housed Congressmen:
So yeah, this seems to be a huge and ongoing gap in financial reporting; the above gap got closed, but it seems to only have been for Congress, somehow?
And it opens the question up — who else is influencing American governance/law enforcement by paying for people to live for free? Is this another of those “behind the curtain” influencer chains that only pop up when, like this Secret Service debacle, they trip up?
germy
Splitting Image
@Roger Moore:
In a nutshell, yeah.
The eye-opening thing about that situation wasn’t the woman’s way of thinking, but the fact that the company chose her to run their ethics seminar. It wasn’t even halfway decently run at that point, and only got worse after that.
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know:
My suspicion is that your suspicion is correct.
smith
@MisterDancer: As I recall, a gift under federal rules is anything of value, which certainly would include a free apartment. When I worked for the feds I had to get an opinion from the agency’s inspector general’s office before I could accept paid travel in order to carry out a training I’d been invited to. It wasn’t money or an object, but was a thing of value.
germy
Geminid
@StringOnAStick: The woman who i hope will be my Representative in the next Congress, Abigail Spanberger,* worked as a Postal Inspector for a couple years after college. Spanberger applied to be a CIA agent, but she had lived overseas in several countries so her security clearence took a while. She got some good experience with the Postal Service while she waited.
* Redistricting shifted Spanberger’s 7th Virginia Congressional District north and I am now on it’s western edge. Spanberger’s Henrico County home was left outside the new district, but I expect she’ll move after her kids’ school year is over.
eclare
@Another Scott: 2012. Secret Service agent hired a hooker, she did her job, then he refused to pay her. Something like eleven agents were eventually involved.
First thing I thought of…
The Moar You Know
@Sister Golden Bear: Postal Police and the IRS cops are not to be fucked with.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: If the allegations described in that affidavit are true, it’s a massive agency failure on its face IMO.
Roger Moore
@smith:
I think a hidden assumption behind the coup was that law enforcement and the military were just looking for an excuse to keep Trump in power. As long as official Washington said Biden was the new president they’d grumble and go along, but they would accept any kind of halfway reasonable excuse for why Trump had actually won and would go along. This was also why the rioters were so surprised when the Capitol police stood up to them; they expected the police to be on their side.
germy
Some of them were. The ones who waved the insurrectionists in and posed for selfies. They’ve since been relieved of their duties.
Betty Cracker
@MisterDancer: Yep. The investigation into the Trump Org revealed that executives and their grown children were living in fancy NYC apartments rent free, apparently without reporting that as compensation. I get the feeling that’s pretty common too. That sort of leverage probably underwrites all sorts of corruption in business.
smith
Just like Putin expected Ukrainians to welcome his troops as they paraded in in their dress uniforms, or the neocons expected candy and flowers in Iraq. Same kind of brain rot, arising, I assume, from the same kind of blinkered narcissism. It’s still astonishing to me that none of those bad actors even gamed out a different scenario. It reflects such a serious cognitive deficit I’m gobsmacked these people have amassed as much power as they have.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: How many federal agents are involved? There need to be more than a few before I’d call it “massive.” It’s certainly “serious,” though.
I guess if you wanted to lump in every federal agent who lived in that building there would be more than a few, but I wonder how many of them are hearing about this for the first time just like we are
“Massive” or just “serious,” this is a fairly spectacular scandal and I expect that a lot more details are forthcoming.
JoyceH
@Geminid: I too am a newcomer to Spanberger’s district. I’ve been in District 1, which always elects GOP nonentities.
cliosfanboy
@The Moar You Know: not to mention the phone police!!! (WKRP ref)
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
The underlying problem is how this kind of illegality is treated. When was the last time you heard of someone getting prison time for cheating on their taxes that way? I don’t remember ever hearing about it. The worst they’re likely to get is to have to pay their back taxes with a penalty. Why wouldn’t someone try to cheat if the penalty for getting caught is barely more than paying what they would have had to pay in the first place? As long as white collar criminals rarely receive more than a slap on the wrist, we’ll continue to have a white collar crime epidemic.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well my thought was these were some rich bois doing Cop Cosplay.
On the other hand, no reason it couldn’t be a scam. cosplay and a spy operation all at the same time . Some grifters who watched all the Die Hard movies bullshited some spy agency that was to lazy to do their own dirty work.
Welcome to the 21st Century, it’s posers and fakers all the way down from here.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mike in NC:
Seems like that group and the group in the NYC office that had it in for Hilary have done us the favor of self-identifying. Maybe they need to be sent to a special assignment. Do we have anyone who needs protecting in the Sahara? The Antarctic? Both?
Geminid
@JoyceH: We’re both lucky, or will be once we help reelect Ms. Spanberger. I may be luckier because my 5th District Repesentative is an odious man every bit as bad as Boebert or Cawthorne, just not as notorious.
geg6
I don’t know why, but when I first read about this early this morning over my coffee before work, I immediately though “fucking Saudi Arabia.” I have no idea why that popped into my head so quickly, but it just sounds like something that piece of garbage country would do.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: The affidavit says four agents were involved, including one assigned to Jill Biden’s detail. That’s not good, but it’s the allegation that this went on for a year undetected and was only found out by happenstance that makes me think the institution has serious problems.
Bex
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Melania must be so jealous.
Martin
@PaulWartenberg: Postal inspectors are no joke. They sound boring enough to not attract the authoritarian assholes and instead get the quiet career guys who piece together weird postal scams.
matt
Dan Bongino was a Secret Service agent for 12 years. The real problem is that in our partisan atmosphere you have to treat any Republican like a terrorist and traitor.
matt
@geg6: That was my first thought as well.
JCJ
@cliosfanboy:
OMG. Great reference! I just watched a youtube clip of that. Dr Johnny Fever (RIP) was great
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I want to know if these agents were duped by the two “jokers,” or knew the two men were bogus. Also, were supervisors involved. And, what outfit or country sponsored the two. This doesn’t smell like something the two would do on their own hook.
Right now the systemic failure seems to be the self-reporting. I think the FBI and CIA still give their agents lie detector tests periodically. That and other more pro-active measures may be in order for Secret Service and DHS personnel.
Ladyracterinok
@MisterDancer:
Who was the Trump cabinet member that got a lot of low rent housing? It was quite a scandal at the time and is one of the things that led to his being replaced.
Jeffery
Former Guy’s fingers are all over this.
Martin
@Splitting Image: This is worse. Taking gifts is a policy in the best interests of the company, but in government it’s a crime. Government is supposed to take that extremely seriously – and most of us did. We wouldn’t even accept a shitty water bottle with your company logo on it. I think the limit was like $5, but it was easier to just reject *everything*. And we’d try to be real public about it as well – always good to show the other employees what the standard is.
I’ll note, that’s how the staff handled it. The faculty, well, they weren’t terrible about it from what I saw, but they were definitely more lax.
Rand Careaga
@Sister Golden Bear:
In the late seventies I appeared in court as a prosecution witness in a case that involved the Postal Service. Two Postal Inspectors were present as I conferred with the DA’s office in advance of the pretrial hearing. At one point I was advised that they, the Postal Inspectors, would prefer that I not mention a certain circumstance in the course of my testimony. “OK,” said I, “but what if the defense attorney asks me about this?”
The prosecutor cradled his fingers and gave me a meaningful look: “We can’t tell you to deny it…”
Me, silently: “Haldeman and Ehrlichman served hard time a few years ago for lying on Nixon’s behalf, and I’m supposed to perjure myself for the Assistant District Attorney of Solano County? I don’t think so. Not Mrs. Careaga’s little boy.”
The defense attorney indeed raised the question. I answered truthfully. “Why didn’t you mention this before?” he demanded. I suppose I could have said, pointing, “Because those gentlemen asked me not to,” but instead I replied “This is the first time you asked.”
I assume that the thing ended in a plea bargain, because I was never thereafter summoned for an actual trial.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Also, I’m thinking of this as a sample. And unless there’s some reason to think these guys were NOT very representative of the Secret Service as a whole, the size of the problem is probably (4/(number of Secret Service living in the building))*(number of Secret Service agents), give or take a MOE.
That it was at least four of them…one is happenstance, two is coincidence, and you know the rest. It just didn’t happen that there were four of these guys in this one building who took these bribes, and totally coincidentally all the Secret Service agents who might have accepted these rather massive favors were all in this building. That just didn’t happen.
jimmiraybob
Does anybody else have Michael Flynn or Erik Prince on their bingo card?
Mai Naem mobile
@Ladyracterinok: Dc
Scotty Boy Pruitt. He also had his aides run all over town looking for the toiletries he liked from either the Ritz or the Waldorf
Betty Cracker
@jimmiraybob: Flynn never occurred to me because he’s a nut who isn’t obscenely wealthy, AFAIK. But yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if Prince was involved. That’s one shady mofo.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: And if his current iteration of “rent-an-army” is still beholden to Xi (as I believe Adam has stated to be the case a few times), then he would certainly have access to the financial resources needed to make this happen.
geg6
@matt:
Glad I wasn’t the only one.
JCNZ
Isn’t this of a part with that story about Mike Pence refusing to get into his secret security vehicle on Jan 6 out of fear there was a “conspiracy” to “vindicate the insurrection” (according to Carol Leaning and Philip Rucker)? The most insane and ominous development on that insane and ominous day.
Kayla Rudbek
@PaulWartenberg: I have a relative who worked for INS before and during their merger into Customs. He says that he will never work for another DHS agency again.
geg6
@Martin:
Yep. Our limit is $10, but who cares about a box of cookies or a water bottle with someone’s company logo? It’s just easier to say no to everything.
PJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As I get older, I tend to see more of a correlation between bad taste and bad behavior. This isn’t to say that most people with bad taste (which is, of course, anyone who doesn’t agree with my taste) are bad people, but that an insensitivity to aesthetics may indicate an insensitivity to the suffering of others. It’s a reddish flag.
Barbara
@jimmiraybob: Erik Prince. That would be feasible. Michael Flynn? Not so much. He doesn’t have the money. He would have to be funded by someone else.
louc
The name of one of the two suspects, Taherzadeh, is Iranian in origin. The location of the apartment is very close to Navy Yard and Fort McNair. And Nats Stadium.
JAFD
@Sister Golden Bear: When I worked for the Post Office, a few decades ago, you became a Postal Inspector by starting as mail sorter on the graveyard shift, and working your way up. Not likely to attract the “I want a gun and a badge” types.
Geminid
@Geminid: Actually, I doubt if the agents were actually “duped.” I think they knew something fishy was going on. In any case, they left themselves open to extortion. A trained spy would know how to gain the upper hand by getting the target to compromise himself. That’s been done a lot.
There an interesting story here that is yet to be told. Why was a Postal Inspector there, and why were they assaulted? Who were the two “jokers” (slang for LEO impersonators) working for and to what end? Suborning Secret Service agents seems unlikely to be simple espionage. There may well have been an action plan that was foiled (I hope).
I think these questions are going to be answered at least partially in the next few days. This is the kind of story that will have national security reporters pressing every source.
Mr. Mayorkis, the DHS Secretary, has got to get answers from his people, who will also have to answer to the FBI. This is at least a criminal matter, and is likely a counterespionage matter too.
phein63
@The Moar You Know: It’s hard to see how any of the items mentioned — free rent, drones, etc — would fit under the $20/year a Federal employee may accept under certain circumstances. Plus, they would have had to have received ethics training at least once during the year, and there’s no way you can make ‘free rent’ an innocent gift, no matter the $$ value.
Geminid
@louc: Close to the Nationals’ stadium?!!
Now I wonder if that rotten Mets owner is behind this. He already stole Max Scherzer, so I would think he’d have backed off. But, “wheels within wheels”….
catclub
@Martin:
…and profit from them?
PaulWartenberg
@Martin:
Well, they got to. Considering they have to stay atop of mail fraud.
Barbara
@PaulWartenberg: The Postal Service has traditionally had one of the most active fraud control units of any agency. The sheer volume of the USPS activities and the number of mail carriers probably makes theft an inevitable temptation for some. I don’t know whether it’s still the same as when I worked for a federal court, but postal fraud was treated really harshly when it was identified.
All the major commercial delivery services like Fed Ex and UPS have major issues with theft, and I would guess that Amazon and some others do as well. They don’t like to talk about it, but I understand that theft of firearms and drugs can be a real problem.
Roger Moore
@phein63:
Never underestimate the human ability to rationalize. Some of that stuff could easily be rationalized as A) being useful for work and thus not a personal gift and b) coming from a fellow law enforcement agent and thus not an attempt to influence the recipient. Once you’ve rationalized that, it’s way easier to keep rationalizing why it’s OK to accept things that are less and less work related.
I think this gets to one of the big things that spies learn how to do: pushing on gray areas. They start with something innocent-seeming and so minor it is of no consequence. Then they work their way up to bigger and bigger things, with each one justified as being not really any different from the previous ones. By the time it’s obviously not OK, the person is deeply compromised and feels compelled to go along so their previous wrongdoing isn’t exposed.
This is exactly why the limits on receiving gifts are set so low. Maybe $100 or $1000 isn’t enough to influence anyone, but receiving gifts with more than nominal value opens the door. The only solution is to set the value so low, maybe even $0, that the door stays permanently closed.
phein63
@PaulWartenberg: It’s under DHS now, not Treasury.
Bobby Thomson
Wire the apartments of a bunch of federal officials and you not only get a lot of intel but a lot of honey pots.
karensky
@The Moar You Know: ✅
dnfree
We watched the movie about Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers last weekend. Interesting to watch the FBI guy slowly (and then suddenly) realize that his agency is just as bad as the KKK and (in his view) the Black Panthers. But he can’t do anything about it.
The FBI building is still named after J. Edgar Hoover, decades after they should have renamed it in embarrassment for what the FBI was under his leadership. Another agency that should be torn down and rebuilt. We’ve seen their corruption and bias over and over again.
Annie
Sheesh. I’m a clerk in an appeals court. I have no decision-making power; I work with lawyers and the public to help them comply with our rules of court. One lawyer who had never done an appeal before wanted to give me a loaf of banana bread as a thank-you for my help.
I was not allowed to accept it.
Kathleen
@JCNZ: The bombs at the DNC when Kamala Harris was there on 1/6 are pretty terrifying also. Both of those stories in the same day scared the hell out of me.
drunkenhausfrau
@Baud: I second this idea.
Captain C
@eclare: I’m always amazed at how many people don’t understand the basic maxim that you don’t stiff or screw the people who do illegal favors for you.
Unkown known
@TonyG:
That’s the story, good lad. I just put your little gift in the mail.
Geminid
This morning I looked around for more news on this matter, and did not find much. Yesterday’s CNBC article seemed to have tge most detail. One odd detail in an odd story: the two mystery men recruited someone described in the article as a “witness.” He says he was recruited by the two men, and that he agreed to be shot with an air rifle to test his will and pain tolerance.
Paul in KY
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I also think they were trying to ascertain how gullible the SS agent was.