The U.S. Secret Service has long been synonymous with protecting the nation's top leaders. From securing the president and vice president to protecting visiting foreign leaders, the agency plays a critical role in protecting the lives of important world leaders.
But the agency's dual mission to protect personnel while investigating financial crimes has lost direction and become dangerously underserved.
Today, Secret Service agents not only protect the president, his family, and more than 30 other protected persons, but also conduct major financial crime investigations. Assigning Secret Service agents these dual roles structurally undermines their ability to focus on the truly important mission of protecting the President.
Months have passed since an assassin's bullet came within centimeters of killing President-elect Trump. A few days ago, America once again marked the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. Despite the passage of time and countless Congressional and other independent investigations, the Secret Service's diluted mission continues to be hampered by dangerous weaknesses.
An organization cannot be fully successful if it tries to do too much with too little or if its mission is diluted by bifurcated responsibilities. But when the life of the American president is at stake, the risk is intolerable.
The historical roots of the Secret Service's current dual mission no longer effectively serve the agency and the people it protects. The Secret Service, created in 1865 to combat counterfeit currency, assumed responsibility for its protection After the assassination of President McKinley in 1901. Since then, the scope of its security duties has expanded dramatically to include protecting the president, vice president and their families, visiting foreign dignitaries, and providing security during major state events.
At the same time, today's investigators are tasked with investigating sophisticated financial crimes such as counterfeiting, cybercrime, and identity theft.
Investigating financial crimes requires expertise in forensic accounting, data analysis, cyber forensics, and more. Defense, on the other hand, requires tactical precision, logistical mastery, and an unparalleled ability to anticipate threats.
Attempting to excel in both important areas of expertise leads to underestimation of the agency, resulting in operational deficiencies and opportunities to strengthen its original mission of protecting the president. It will be lost.
The burden of the service's dual mandate became clearly evident. Despite the agency's finite resources, the threat environment for protected persons has increased dramatically, and the agency's investigative demands have increased, even as financial fraud techniques have become more sophisticated. As crime continues, investigators must adapt to an ever-evolving landscape of technology and sophisticated criminal tactics.
Like it or not, these dual missions compete with each other for limited Secret Service capabilities. Unless reform occurs, avoidable tragedies may occur because we do not continue to refocus the Secret Service on its original mission.
The Secret Service has unparalleled expertise in personal protection. Its agents are highly trained in threat assessment, crisis response, and logistics planning. From coordinating motorcade routes to implementing state-of-the-art counter-surveillance measures, the agency is uniquely equipped to protect celebrities from a variety of threats.
Responsibility for investigating financial fraud should be assigned to other federal agencies, allowing Secret Service agents to focus solely on protection. While financial crimes investigations are important, they are better suited to agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which already have the infrastructure and experience to investigate matters currently handled by the Secret Service.
Resources could be directed toward strengthening training programs, improving technology, and addressing emerging threats. Investigators will no longer be burdened by the competing demands of investigating financial crimes, and will be able to focus their full attention on the complex task of ensuring safety and security.
Streamlining the Secret Service's mission is a necessary first step, but Congress should consider even bolder reforms, including merging the Secret Service with other federal agencies focused solely on physical protection.
This service may be integrated with other conservation-focused agencies.diplomatic security servicecurrently provides protection (in addition to other investigative responsibilities) for visiting foreign dignitaries, officials and their families, and U.S. embassy personnel abroad.
Combining the capabilities of two agencies with comparable missions has the potential to better protect leaders with the highest level of expertise and accuracy possible. All threats would be dealt with much more effectively if there was a unified chain of command that could address all threats to U.S. officials and visiting parents (as well as U.S. officials serving abroad).
Injecting additional taxes into this challenge is not the answer and may even delay needed reforms.
In an era of dramatically increasing threats, focus is not just a strategic advantage, it's also a matter of survival.
The Secret Service's current dual mandate is neither advisable nor sustainable, at least not without continuing to jeopardize the safety of our leaders.
Congress should act now to restore to the Secret Service its most important responsibility and authority: the physical protection of the President, his family, and other protected persons.
Michael D. Barnett is a former Special Agent in the United States Secret Service (USSS), recipient of the USSS Medal of Valor, and current Chief Operating Officer in the private sector serving the utility industry.
