Secret Service agent ‘suspended after sexually assaulting aide Kamala Harris’ in latest shocking allegation
Allegations that a Secret Service agent sexually assaulted a campaign staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris are just the latest scandal to plague the agency.
The incident reportedly occurred while Harris staffers were dining and drinking at a local restaurant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last week. They were there to plan an event that ultimately fell through.
The new report came on the same day the Senate released a report revealing a series of USSS failures that ultimately allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks, a potential assassin, to successfully fire a shot into Donald Trump’s right ear.
The agency is under heavy scrutiny after two assassination attempts on Trump in the space of just two months.
Four sources in the Secret Service community spoke about the latest incident with Real Clear Politics and claimed that there were people present who witnessed the inappropriate interaction.
Secret Service officials summoned the accused agent to headquarters in Washington, DC, and ordered him to meet with investigators from the Inspections Division on Monday.
A Secret Service agent is accused of sexually assaulting a campaign staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris during a planning and security trip to Wisconsin
During the preliminary security and safety check, a group returned to the hotel room of a Harris aide, where an officer allegedly groped a female employee and clung to her.
According to a source, the accused officer was very drunk and was thrown out of the hotel room by colleagues.
According to an insider within the USSS community, the agent fell unconscious in the hallway where his photos were being taken.
Harris’ campaign team opted to go to Atlanta, Georgia on Friday, September 20, instead of Wisconsin, where the planning took place.
“The U.S. Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating an allegation of misconduct involving an employee,” a Secret Service spokesperson told Real Clear Politics.
“The Secret Service holds its employees to the highest standards. The employee has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation,” they added.
The White House and the USSS did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment on the allegations.
A Senate report this week found that the Secret Service made mistakes that led to the first assassination attempt on Trump, including knowing that Crooks was a suspect for 27 minutes.
Another disturbing finding from the bipartisan investigation was how technical problems caused Secret Service drones to be shot down during the July 13 protest in Butler, Pennsylvania.
It took several hours to get the drones working again, and the officer in charge of drone operations had only three months of experience with the equipment.
The report, published on Wednesday, concluded that the failures leading up to the demonstration were “foreseeable, avoidable and directly related to the events leading up to the attempted assassination that day.”
A bipartisan Senate investigation into the attempted assassination of Butler found that the failures at the meeting were “foreseeable” and “preventable.” Pictured: Secret Service agents gather to slam Donald Trump during the meeting on July 13, 2024
The 20-year-old, now deceased, gunman managed to hit Trump in the ear, kill one person at the rally and seriously wound two others before a sniper took him out.
Crooks was crouched atop a nearby building, a few hundred feet from where Trump spoke that day, with an AR-15 rifle. He was able to fire eight rounds into Trump’s direction less than 500 feet from where the former president spoke.
Investigators into the attempted assassination have repeatedly said that drones should have been able to detect the shooter on the roof of an AGR complex building on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show.
Congress is considering giving the USSS more money to increase staffing and deploy countermeasures.
But the Senate report also found that the Secret Service, with additional resources, took other questionable actions that led to security problems at that day’s meeting.
For example, the USSS has denied specific ground requests for additional C-UAS drone capabilities and a liaison to the Counter Assault Team.
It was also established that the USSS was notified of a person on the roof of the building two minutes before Crooks fired shots.
Like the agency’s own internal investigation and an ongoing bipartisan House inquiry, the interim report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found multiple deficiencies at nearly every level.
This included planning, communication, security and resource allocation.
“The consequences of those failures were dire,” said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland Panel.
He claimed that communication between security officials was a “multi-step game of telephone.”
The report concluded that USSS had technical problems with drones that were not resolved for hours. Pictured above: Potential assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks walks around the rally before shooting Trump
Multiple Secret Service failures ultimately led to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump
Investigators found that there was no clear chain of command between the Secret Service and other intelligence agencies, and there was no plan to visualize the building the shooter climbed to fire.
Officials were working on multiple, separate radio channels, causing missed communications, and an inexperienced drone operator was stuck on a helpline because his equipment was malfunctioning.
Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was hit in the ear by a bullet or bullet fragment during the assassination attempt. One protester was killed and two others were wounded before the gunman was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
About 22 seconds before Crooks fired, the report said, a local officer radioed a warning that an armed person was in the building.
But that information was not passed on to key Secret Service officials questioned by Senate investigators.
The House also has a task force focused on investigating both assassination attempts.
Police snipers return fire after Trump was shot while giving a speech at the Butler Farm Show
Multiple investigations have found that if drones had been used properly at the meeting, the Secret Service could have detected Crooks crouched on the roof of the AGR complex building with his AR-15 rifle and shot Trump from a distance of just a few hundred yards.
Each investigation has yielded new details that point to a massive lapse in the former president’s security, and lawmakers say they want to know much more because they want to prevent something like this from happening again.
The senators advised the Secret Service to better define roles and responsibilities before any protective action is launched, including by designating a single person responsible for approving all security plans.
In addition to better defining responsibility for events, the senators recommended that the agency completely overhaul its communications activities during protective events and improve intelligence sharing.
They also advised Congress to evaluate whether additional resources are needed.
Democrats and Republicans disagree over whether the Secret Service should get more money after its failures.
A bill expected to pass before the end of the month includes an additional $231 million for the agency, but many Republicans have said an internal overhaul is needed first.
“This is a simple management problem,” said Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the Homeland Panel’s investigative committee.