Ronald Kessler - The First Family Detail

One of those not screened was bogus sign language interpreter Thamsanqa Jantjie, who stood three feet from Obama and other world leaders during the service at Soweto’s FNB stadium. In 2003, Jantjie was part of a group that accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks. As a result of the murders, Jantjie was institutionalized for at least a year. Yet in commenting on that fact, Secret Service spokesman Donovan covered up the obvious security lapses by saying “agreed-upon security measures between the U.S. Secret Service and South African government security officials were in place” during the service. He thus implicitly confirmed that the Secret Service had failed to warn Obama of the security breakdown so that he could decide whether to appear at the event or address the crowds remotely by television.

“I really don’t think the president should be going to these sorts of events unless there’s some guarantee that the domestic security force has a plan that’s operational and workable,” says former agent Dan Bongino, who was on George W. Bush’s protective detail.

Reflecting her priorities, just after taking office, Pierson sent an e-mail to all agents reminding them to maintain a “professional appearance.” Tattoos should not be visible, and facial hair must be short and “neatly groomed,” she instructed. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover reflected the same obsession with image, helping to conceal the bureau’s many flaws.

Pierson may have done nothing to reform the agency, but she loves taking trips with Obama on Air Force One, as she did when Obama flew to the Netherlands in March 2014. There, three agents who were assigned to protect the president were sent home for misconduct after a night of drinking. Hotel personnel found one of the agents passed out in a hallway. While the agents obviously lacked any common sense, their punishment reflected the agency’s continuing double standard: Agents in the field may suffer severe repercussions for transgressions, while management orders agents to take risks that could result in an assassination.

The Secret Service’s annual budget is $1.6 billion—about half the cost of one B-2 Stealth Bomber. Given the importance of the presidency, doubling that figure would be money well spent. But rather than request substantially more funds, the Secret Service assures President Obama and members of Congress that the agency is fulfilling its job with the modest increases it requests, even as it takes on more duties, and sleep-deprived agents work almost around the clock. Yet scrimping on protection of the president, the vice president, and presidential candidates risks an assassination that would undermine American democracy.

If the Secret Service has fallen down on its duties, it is unexcelled at providing special access to members of Congress and sweet-talking them, the media, and the president into thinking that it is competent. That is one reason the press never questioned why the Secret Service would allow John Hinckley to get within fifteen feet of President Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton. Like Hoover’s FBI, which dishonestly padded arrest statistics, just as the Secret Service does by taking credit for arrests made by local police, the USSS skillfully projects a rosy image it does not deserve.

Only an outside director with a fresh perspective—as Robert S. Mueller III had when he took over as FBI director—would be capable of reforming Secret Service management and changing the culture that fosters corner cutting and punishes agents who question it. Unlike former FBI director Freeh, who dissed anyone who brought him bad news, Mueller removed FBI officials who did not level with him.

Obama’s failure to heed the warning signs is as reckless as President Kennedy’s refusal to let agents ride on the rear running board of his limousine in Dallas or the insistence of the staff of the Reagan White House that unscreened members of the public be allowed close to President Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton. Yet Congress has also been derelict in its duty. When it comes to selecting a Secret Service director, Congress has never demanded accountability by requiring Senate confirmation.

The list of positions that do require Senate confirmation is long and the positions often obscure. Not only the head of the U.S. Marshals Service requires Senate confirmation but also ninety-four marshals positions, one in each judicial district. Besides the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the director of the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime requires confirmation. So does the librarian of Congress and the deputy director for demand reduction of the so-called drug czar. The Secret Service director is missing from this list.

Yet along with the FBI, whose director does require confirmation, the Secret Service is the paramount agency responsible for protecting American democracy. And given its powers, the service’s potential for engaging in abuses is almost as great as the FBI’s.

In imposing greater accountability, Secret Service agents should be required to report to the director in writing any instruction to ignore the agency’s security recommendations—whether it comes from Secret Service supervisors, the president, the vice president, a presidential candidate, or their staffs. While a protectee is free to override Secret Service recommendations, the Secret Service director would then be held responsible if he or she did not take steps to persuade the individual to adhere to Secret Service advice.

In the case of protectees’ staffs or Secret Service supervisors, the director would be responsible for failing to tell agents to disregard requests that undercut security. If that simple solution had been in effect when the Reagan White House pressured Secret Service agents to let unscreened members of the public approach President Reagan, Hinckley never could have shot him.

Entering Secret Service headquarters, you see on the wall the words “Worthy of Trust and Confidence” in big silver letters. Since the Secret Service first began protecting presidents, that has been an admonishment to agents not to reveal what they see behind the scenes. After I broke the story of agents’ engaging prostitutes in Cartagena, the Secret Service reinforced that dictate by requiring agents to sign confidentiality agreements, suggesting by the timing a desire to avoid future embarrassment.

On the surface, it may seem to be a legitimate point that if agents are not discreet, protectees may not trust them and therefore may want to evade them if the protectees choose to engage in embarrassing activities. But the American people also legitimately have a right to know about the true character of their leaders. Often, Secret Service agents are the only ones who see what those in the White House are really like. Like human surveillance cameras, Secret Service agents are uniquely positioned to assess a president’s character.

Those who run for high office should expect a high degree of scrutiny and to be held accountable for personal indiscretions that conflict with their public image and reveal hypocrisy. Rather than expecting the Secret Service to cover up for them, they should not enter public life if they insist on leading double lives. That is particularly true when one considers that a president or vice president having an affair opens himself up to possible manipulation and blackmail.

“If you want the job, then you need to lead the kind of life and be the kind of person that can stand up to the scrutiny that comes with that job,” says former Secret Service agent Clark Larsen.

John Adams, the second U.S. president, said the people “have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge—I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.”