Secret Service oath

[birdographer]

Doesn't Donnie have secret service agents protecting him? The secret service agents' oath, as I found it, is

“I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

So...how are they defending our constitution against all enemies while defending Donnie from harm? He has threatened our constitution numerous times. Maybe it's just me, but that is puzzling. Do they take some secret MAGA oath that overrides it?

[Elessar Zappa]

1. All former presidents get SS protection.

[multigraincracker]

2. Will that include him

while in jail?
Just asking.

[Emile]

6. We never had an ex president in jail before. We

can't expect to lock up Secret Service members with him. The most logical thing is prison guards would replace Secret Service.

[brooklynite]

10. No, the most logical thing is that Secret Service would replace prison guards.

The Secret Service is ONLY there to provide physical protection. They don't need to provide Trump with anything else.

[C_U_L8R]

12. Or just deputize prison guards into the Secret Service

Trump will be adequately protected.

[brooklynite]

15. I'm guessing the SS has a different training protocol.

As an example, prison guards rarely carry guns; Secret Service details always do.

[NanaCat]

21. Oh please. As if SS agents would be living with him in jail

They would have shifts like any normal worker, and work alongside the prison staff.

If TSF goes to one of the supermax facilities (probably the best way to 'protect' him), the SS wouldn't need many agents watching over him. Ever see the inside of one of these places? This is where the guards work on the higher risk sectors:



You can post one SS guy there alongside normal staff, and he can devote himself to monitoring his charge's room and escorting him to and from the exercise yard for his 1 hour outdoors. Might need a few more agents to guard the perimeter or key parts of the prison per shift, but, other than that, it would be a typical 8 hour grind.

[2naSalit]

14. No.

They would sign over his protective care to the Bur. of Prisons or US Marshal through an MOU or such agreement.

[jmowreader]

16. That's the tradition, yeah

I read the Secret Service law, and it says the Secretary of Homeland Security is “authorized to” grant protection to former presidents.

The implication is that if Worthless Fuck is given three hots and a cot plus a job running a license plate press in a federal House of Particular Individuals the Secretary is authorized to tell him, “sorry pal, you’re on your own.” By the way, is anyone making license plate frames that say “my next license plate will be made by Donald Trump”? I’d buy one of those.

[birdographer]

17. Yes, I know

I was wondering more about a conflict protecting a former president who committed insurrection against the US, and does that conflict with their oath?

[NanaCat]

22. They go where they're assigned. It's not their job

To make judgments about the guilt or innocence of who they're guarding.

[birdographer]

32. No judgments

"To defend the constitution"--a constitution which has been threatened by the man they are protecting. It's a fact. He has said that he will be discarding portions of it. How is protecting him defending it? He is a direct threat to it, as much as Putin is. What other kinds of threats are there? Or that's just my take.

[CanonRay]

3. Exactly the same oath evert Federal agent takes n/t

[NanaCat]

23. The oath every federal employee takes

Even the janitors have to take that oath.

[Think. Again.]

4. I suggest we change the role that secret service agents have...

...to not only protect their charges from harm, but to also protect the U.S. from any harm caused by their charges.

The secret service agents are in a prime position to monitor whether their charges are being compromised in any way, either against their will or while willfully cooperating with any anti-American activity.

[Sympthsical]

18. I highly reccomend reading Roman History

Particularly the parts where the Praetorian Guard decided they had political goals.

Terrible idea to give security forces interpretive political motives and legal enforcement powers to execute them.

Just really terrible.

[Think. Again.]

19. As most adults know...

...every situation is different.

I wasn't suggesting creating a second Praetorian Guard, I was suggesting training secret service to be security agents not only of individual people's physical protection, but also of the protection of their activities concerning national security.

Your Praetorian Guard analogy is kind of far-fetched, and considering we already entrust the secret service to physically protect certain people instead of choosing to physically hurt those people themselves, I'm pretty sure we could also trust the Agents put in place to protect national security just as we trust the CIA to do that.

[Sympthsical]

20. Still a hard no

For reasons previously explained. Once you give security forces interpretive powers about national security, you have opened the door wide to all kinds of problems. How would you feel about a Secret Service spying on and interpreting a Democratic President, just waiting for the moment to clamp down on them?

Just like Al Qaeda did when America went goofy with the security state, we cannot allow Trump to break us by indulging some of the wilder and more authoritarian - and ahistorical - impulses just because of him.

[Think. Again.]

28. I don't agree...

...because I don't think that an intelligence agent would be any more of a threat than they already might be if they were assigned directly to a specific post.

[brooklynite]

5. Are you saying he shouldn't be protected from "harm"?

What does that have to do with criminal justice? And what has the SS done to prevent that?

[republianmushroom]

7. Finger crossed, maybe ?

[Uncle Joe]

8. As a side note, what do you get when you mix Lassie with a Pit Bull?

A dog that will rip your arm off and then go for help.

I remember hearing that one on Johnny Carson one night.

That seems to be the secret service agent dilemma.

Thanks for the thread birdographer

[RockRaven]

9. Oaths aren't magic. They don't actually bind or guide behavior.

Unless the people who have taken them are both honorable and extremely vigilant.

[brooklynite]

11. What evidence do you have that any Secret Service agent in Trump's detail has violated their oath?

[RSherman]

13. "So help me God"

Of course they had to throw that in the oath.

I'm reading The Founding Myth by Andrew Seidel and Ch. 23 is about oaths.
George Washington's ended with "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution." Period.
The words "so help me God" do not appear in the oath prescribed in Article 2 of the Constitution.
The Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office.
On April 27, 1789, the House passed its first bill, a godless oath of office. Five days later, the Senate did the same.
No evidence suggests that Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, or Adams added "God" to the oath.
Chester Arthur had a private inauguration, at which he did not say "God". However, at a second inauguration, he added "God", a public reenactment done for show, strategic piety.

Boy oy boy, does "strategic piety" describe all the fake "God" stuff coming out of the mouths of Republican legislators.

"In God We Trust" was added to coins in 1863, the height of the Civil War, when there was a lot of religious fervor.

"Under God" was added to the Pledge in 1954, by Eisenhower, a Republican.

"The push to add “under God” to the pledge gained momentum during the second Red Scare, a period when U.S. politicians were keen to assert the moral superiority of U.S. capitalism over Soviet communism, which many conservatives regarded as 'godless'.”

Nixon was the first president to close a speech with "God bless America".

[NanaCat]

24. No one's ever had to add the G-d part to the oath

It was always optional.

[RSherman]

25. That's good

[NoRethugFriends]

26. he's not going to jail

[bluestarone]

27. Just wondering if TFG was IMPEACHED, like he should have been

If we would have to worry about protecting him? Does an IMPEACHED president still get SS protection?

[Attilatheblond]

29. Send the rat to ADX Florence, it should be safe & need minimal Secret Service guards. He's cost us enough already

ADX Florence, supposedly the most secure prison in the US

Illustration of cells. I am sure he would really be miserable here. Let's make it so.

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[rso]

30. RSO

Donnie’s jail sentence will most likely be served in a “house arrest” situation with electronic monitoring. That’s fine as long as he’s convicted and done for. The other alternative is to pass a law stating that past presidents who are convicted felons are not entitled to Secret Service protection, therefore going to prison is not a problem.

[JT45242]

31. Still trying to reconcile that oath with not alerting the FBI and homeland pre Jan6

How did they they live up that oath?

How was deleting all those texts and covering for TFG defending against all enemies foreign and domestic?

This is another place the DOJ let us down.

[erronis]

33. Apparently many government staff also sign another oath that isn't public.

And that oath overrides any established by a government. Perhaps it is an oath to a religious or fraternal organization. Perhaps it is an oath to some powerful other entity.

Oath-swearing seems to be interpretable as one wants.