Ronald Kessler: The First Family Detail

“Hillary didn’t like the military aides wearing their uniforms around the White House,” another former agent recalls. “She asked if they would wear business suits instead. The uniform’s a sign of pride, and they’re proud to wear their uniform. I know that the military was actually really offended by it.”

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Secret Service agents were told that the Clintons had issued instructions that agents leave their posts and, as if they were criminals, step around corners to hide as the Clintons approached.

“We were told they didn’t want to see us,” an agent on the detail says.

“Hillary never talked to us,” says another agent who was on her detail. “Most all members of first families would talk to us and smile. She never did that.”

“Hillary would cuss at Secret Service drivers for going over bumps,” former agent Jeff Crane says.

“When she’s in front of the lights, she turns it on, and when the lights are off and she’s away from the lights, she’s a totally different person,” says another agent who was on her detail. “She’s very angry and sarcastic and is very hard on her staff. She yells at them and complains.” For example, Hillary will complain that the hotel chosen for her by her aides is a dump. “She is a totally different person behind the scenes than what you see when she is being interviewed.”

In her book Living History , Hillary Clinton wrote of her gratitude to the White House staff. The truth was, says a Secret Service agent, “Hillary did not speak to us. We spent years with her. She never said thank you.”

Hillary’s relationship with her husband is equally phony. The current location of the president is displayed by an electronic box at key offices in the White House and at the Secret Service. He is listed as POTUS, for President of the United States. Called the protectee locator, the box also shows the location of the first lady (FLOTUS), the vice president (VPOTUS), and the president’s and vice president’s children. If they are not in Washington, the locator box displays their current city. In addition, uniformed officers stationed at the White House update one another by radio on the location of the president and first lady within the Executive Mansion.

When the Clintons were in the White House, “it was funny, because on the radio you’d hear that she went somewhere, and then you’d hear that he went to the same location, and every time he went to her, she would go somewhere else,” a former uniformed officer says.

Secret Service agents assigned at various points to guard Hillary during her Senate campaign were dismayed at how two-faced and seething with anger she was. It was the same hypocrisy she later admitted to when she said in a meeting with President Obama and then defense secretary Robert Gates, according to Gates’s memoir Duty , that she had opposed the troop surge in Iraq for purely political reasons.

“During the listening tour, she planned ‘impromptu’ visits at diners and local hangouts,” recalls a Secret Service agent then on her detail. “The events were all staged, and the questions were screened. She would stop off at diners. The campaign would tell them three days ahead that they were coming. They would talk to the owner and tell him to invite everyone and bring his friends. Hillary flew into rages when she thought her campaign staff had not corralled enough onlookers beforehand. Hillary had an explosive temper.”

Like her husband and his White House staff, Hillary and her staff were disorganized and habitually late.

“She had children running her campaign,” an agent then on her detail says. “She had a lack of organization and a lack of maturity. She could not keep a schedule.” When she stayed at the houses of Democratic supporters, “We would show up at their homes at 2 A.M., and she would sleep in the master bedroom,” he says.

Hillary’s Senate campaign staff planned a visit to a 4-H Club in dairy farm country in upstate New York. As they approached the outdoor event and she saw people dressed in jeans and surrounded by cows, Hillary flew into a rage.

“She turned to a staffer and said, ‘What the f— did we come here for? There’s no money here,’” a Secret Service agent remembers.

Ironically, while Hillary is the protectee from hell, agents have nothing but praise for her daughter, Chelsea.

“In my career, Chelsea Clinton did it the best,” says an agent familiar with both her detail and the Bush twins’ details. “Treated the detail right, told them what was going on, never gave problems that I knew of.”

“Chelsea was always very nice to the agents, very cordial, and that’s all you ever want, is to have a free flow of information so there are no surprises and you can plan for their security,” former Secret Service agent William Albracht says.

“It’s kind of funny, as dysfunctional as the Clintons are, Chelsea is the best,” another agent says.

Hillary’s staff reflects her imperiousness. According to agents, Huma Abedin, who heads Hillary’s Transition Office and was her deputy chief of staff at the State Department and traveling chief of staff during her campaign for the presidency, can be just as rude and nasty as Hillary. A former agent recalls helping Abedin when she got lost driving Chelsea to the February 2008 Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles.

“She was belligerent and angry about being late for the event,” the former agent says. “No appreciation for any of it, not a thank-you or anything. That was common for her people to be rude.”

At another event in Los Angeles, a female agent challenged Abedin because she was not wearing a pin that identifies cleared aides to Secret Service agents. The agent had no idea who she was.

“You don’t have the proper identification to go beyond this point,” the agent told her.

“Huma basically tried to throw her weight around,” a former agent says. “She tried to just force her way through and said belligerently, ‘Do you know who I am?’”

That got her nowhere. Eventually, Abedin—who is married to disgraced former congressman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner—cooperated with the agent and suggested a contact who could verify her identity.

“Huma Abedin looked down on the agents and treated them as second-class citizens,” a former agent says. While agents are not supposed to carry luggage, they will do so as a courtesy if they like a female protectee, such as Lynne Cheney or Rosalynn Carter. But with Abedin, “the agents were just like, ‘Hey, you’re going to be like that? Well, you get your own luggage to the car. Oh, and by the way, you can carry the first lady’s luggage to the car, too.’ She’d have four bags, and we’d stand there and watch her and say, ‘Oh, can we hold the door open for you?’”

“On TV, they will make it sound like they just really appreciated and loved those Secret Service agents and appreciate all their sacrifices and all that,” a former agent says of the Clintons. “Then behind the scenes, they’re like, ‘I don’t want to see these guys.’” He adds, “When it’s convenient for them, they’ll utilize the service for whatever favor they need, but otherwise, they look down upon the agents, kind of like servants.”

Agents say Hillary’s nastiness and contempt for them and disdain for law enforcement and the military in general continued, both when she was secretary of state and now that she is protected as a former first lady, earning her the distinction of being considered the Secret Service’s most detested protectee.

“There’s not an agent in the service who wants to be in Hillary’s detail,” a current agent says. “If agents get the nod to go to her detail, that’s considered a form of punishment among the agents. She’s hard to work around, she’s known to snap at agents and yell at agents and dress them down to their faces, and they just have to be humble and say, ‘Yes ma’am,’ and walk away.”