Secret Service Agent Assigned To VP Harris Attacks Other Agents, So Obviously DEI Responsible

The usual suspects with their usual scapegoat

A Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris’s detail was removed after demonstrating what the agency describes as “distressing” behavior. The vice president was scheduled to visit Wisconsin on Monday when the “incident” occurred at around 9 a.m. at Joint Base Andrews. Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi would only say that the agent started “displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing.” This statement is like a Twin Peaks episode. It just confuses me and raises more questions.

Guglielmi said, “The agent was removed from their assignment while medical personnel were summoned.” He insisted there “was no impact on [Harris’s] departure” from the base. I guess there’s no real mystery here, and we shouldn’t have any more curiosity about this bizarre coverup.

However, the right-wing Washington Examiner eagerly reported that the agent fought “unarmed with other detail agents.” According to the Examiner, “the agent became aggressive with other agents. When the special agent in charge and a detail shift supervisor attempted to calm the agent, a physical altercation ensued. The agent was handcuffed before being withdrawn from service for medical assessment.”

That is certainly distressing behavior.

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CBS News further reports that the agent “spouted gibberish, was speaking incoherently and provoked another officer physically.” Sources told CBS News that the agent pushed the special agent in charge near the lounge at Joint Base Andrews.

The agent was admitted to the hospital after an on-site medical evaluation. There’s no indication of substance abuse, and the USSS is treating this as a mental health issue and not a disciplinary matter. The USSS will conduct an internal review and determine if the agent who threw down with their boss will retain their top secret security clearance. I’m glad the agent is receiving the appropriate medical attention, but is it really an open question whether the agent will return to work? When I worked at a supermarket in high school, a cashier once got in a fight with the assistant manager (slight difference of opinion over boyfriend custody), and she wasn’t allowed back to the register.

I sympathize with whatever the agent is going through, but I’m also very protective of our first Black woman vice president. The sister needs a buttoned-up operation. There are way too many MAGAs with guns out there. Maybe Beyoncé should share her private security with Harris until the USSS gets on top of everything.

So, how is DEI to blame?

Susan Crabtree, a political correspondent for RealClearPolitics, provided more disturbing details about the incident. The agent, while mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains and hurled menstrual pads and other items at another agent. She told the other agents they were “going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God.”

Crabtree posted on social media, “Sources within the Secret Service community tell me the agent assigned to VP Kamala Harris was armed during the fight — that the gun was secured in the agent's holster until other agents physically restrained the agent and took the gun from the agent’s possession. I’m also told there are DEI concerns among the USSS community about the hiring of this agent.”

Crabtree trots out that reliable bogeyman and scapegoat Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as if no organization ever made a bad hire prior to DEI initiatives. Meanwhile, Lara Trump is running the Republican National Committee and no one says “boo” or “shameless nepotism.”

“Other agents and officers within the USSS are asking questions about the agent’s hiring process, whether the USSS did enough to look into the agent’s background and monitor the agent’s mental well-being because there have been widespread concerns about other strange behavior before this incident,” Crabtree wrote. “For now, I am also withholding the agent’s name.”

She didn’t withhold the name for long. Her full article, “Secret Service Scuffle Prompts DEI, Vetting Scrutiny,” identifies the agent as Michelle Herczeg. What Crabtree doesn’t identify is how this unfortunate incident would legitimately prompt DEI or vetting “scrutiny.” The usual right-wing suspects, however, have focused on DEI simply because the Secret Service has a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility program. The program’s goal is to ensure that all agents are treated fairly regardless of their individual backgrounds. Only shameless bigots would suggest that DEI can only result in lowered standards for employees. Almost 30 percent of Secret Service agents are women. Even if Herczeg was the first woman they hired, her behavior reflects only upon her not her gender. Nonetheless, Crabtree writes, “Some [agents] also wonder whether her hire was part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion push in response to years of staff shortages that may have required the agency to lower its once-strict employment standards and physical performance to reach quotas for female agents and officers.” Crabtree reports this unprofessional, unfair speculation as fact.

Crabtree spoke to a former senior Secret Service agent who she claims is “well-versed on this incident. He bemoaned the situation: ‘This is crazy. Someone is going to get killed — I’m surprised they haven’t already.’”

Her source here is Dan Bongino, a right-wing pundit and professional congressional race loser. He hasn’t worked in the Secret Service since May 2011, so it’s unclear how “well-versed” he could be on this specific incident. A staunch Trump supporter, Bongino said in a 2018 interview, “My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That’s it.” This is a grown man.

After a failed Senate campaign in 2012, Bongino published a memoir, Life Inside The Bubble, that subjected readers to his stories about protecting Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bongino claimed that he’d resigned from the service because of “the fog of scandals in the Obama administration.” Some of his former colleagues took issue with Bongino using his Secret Service history for political gain. They also disputed his claim that he had access to “high-level discussions” in the Obama White House.

“We don’t sit in on meetings at the White House. We don’t sit in on high-level meetings,” the agents stressed. “He’s trying to draw attention to himself and he’s hijacking the Secret Service brand. That’s all he’s got going for him.”

I presume her other sources are more reputable.

This agent is about to take a bullet

Right-wing media is framing Herczeg as a known problem because of issues she had as a senior corporal with the Dallas Police Department. They’ve mentioned how she and another officer once shot an armed man in a parked car, but it seems like their real quarrel with her is that she’d filed a $1 million gender discrimination lawsuit against the city, alleging that she “was targeted for being a female officer and treated less favorably.” She alleged that a male superior officer assaulted her in May 2015 and that “[i]ntimidation tactics were used as investigative tools to persuade [her] from seeking criminal relief against the officer.” She claimed that after she reported the alleged assault, she was denied overtime shifts, which caused “stress and mental anguish from loss in payment compensation.”

Ronald Kessler, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post, told RCP that the Secret Service would’ve normally rejected Herczeg’s application — not because she shot a guy but because she filed a discrimination suit that was dismissed. I really wish this entire paragraph was a typo.

“Yes, that should have been enough to exclude her, because you really have to have a pristine record,” he said. “Certainly, this has been true in the past. There’s tremendous competition, and she never should have been hired.”

Kessler seriously just said that Herczeg’s career should have ended because she filed a gender discrimination suit that was later dismissed. There’s no evidence that she deliberately lied and made up allegations. Cops frequently sue the city for wrongful termination and even defamation on the rare occasions they’re actually disciplined for police brutality. Of course, those suits are usually successful.

Now Herczeg is set to get dragged through the mud, and her mental health callously weaponized against DEI programs. I don’t think she should continue to serve in Vice President Harris’s detail, but I also don’t think she deserves the hatchet job she’s about to endure.

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