While much of what the Secret Service does is, well, hole-and-corner, the unremarkably out-of-the-spotlight bureau has been in the news lately. Two agents are sharing accounts of then-President Donald Trump angrily berating the Secret Service afterwards he demanded to get to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. half dozen, 2021. Now the bureau's manager, James Murray, is leaving to join Snapchat (a long-planned divergence unrelated to the recent scrutiny, officials say).
At that place'south plenty more information about this more-than-150-year-old federal law enforcement bureau that'due south non and then well hidden. From its origins and duties to some of the more salacious details of what it takes to guard globe leaders, here are some things you might not know most the U.S. Secret Service.
Related: Hard-to-Believe Facts About the White House
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Its Founding Is Total of Irony
And a sad irony, at that. History has it that the legislation enacting the bureau that would become known every bit the U.S. Secret Service was signed past President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 — the very aforementioned day he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
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But It Didn't Originally Handle Presidential Protection
One of the nation'south oldest federal investigative law enforcement agencies, the Undercover Service was originally founded as a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department to combat U.Due south. currency counterfeiting. A serious problem at the time, it's estimated that post-obit the Ceremonious War, a full tertiary to one-half of the circulating currency was counterfeit. The Hugger-mugger Service remained under the Department of the Treasury until 2003, when it was transferred to the newly established Department of Homeland Security.
Related: Why Pennies Yet Exist and Other Coin Trivia
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Presidential Protection Became Function of the Gig Post-obit an Assassination
In 1894, Grover Cleveland was the commencement U.S. president to receive protection from the Secret Service, but on an informal part-time basis. In 1901, Congress again informally requested presidential protection post-obit the assassination of President William McKinley. The following year, the Secret Service assumed full-fourth dimension presidential protection, and then added president-elect protection in 1908.
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They Have Code Names for Their Charges ...
For decades, the Secret Service has used code names to refer to presidents, their spouses, and children. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, for example, were Rawhide and Rainbow; George H.W. and Barbara Bush were Timberwolf and Snowbank; Bill and Hillary Clinton were Hawkeye and Evergreen; George W. and Laura Bush-league were Tumbler and Tempo; Barack Michelle Obama were Renegade and Renaissance; and Donald and Melania Trump were Mogul and Muse. You can run across the full listing going dorsum to Woodrow Wilson's term.
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... And the Presidential Car
The presidential limousine — a heavily modified Cadillac — is unofficially named "The Fauna." Its modifications include more than seven tons of additional armor and reportedly tear gas grenade launchers, smoke-screen dispensers, and more. At that place is some dispute about whether the limo or some other presidential vehicle was the site of the Jan. vi incident recently described in congressional testimony past former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and agents speaking to media outlets such every bit CNN. They say then-President Trump got into a heated confrontation with his Secret Service detail when they told him it wasn't safe to go to the Capitol.
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Agents Practise More Than Protect the President
Throughout its history and standing to today, Secret Service agents exercise much more than than make sure no harm comes to the president. Congress has enacted legislation that lets the Secret Services investigate espionage, financial crimes, forgery, and many types of fraud; provide protection for visiting heads of country; and, co-ordinate to its website, "participate in the planning, coordination, and implementation of security operations at special events of national significance ... as determined by the President."
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Its Forensics Services Are Impressive
The Undercover Service notes that its forensic laboratory includes the largest ink library in the globe, with more xv,000 samples — a collection that helps agents suss out forged documents. It also notes that "much of the technology and techniques utilized by examiners" inside the lab is "exclusive to the U.S. Hugger-mugger Service." Finally, it reportedly has one of the almost highly regarded polygraph programs in beingness, where extensively trained personnel are considered "experts in the psychology of charade."
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Information technology Employs Thousands
According to its website, the Secret Service employs somewhere upwardly of 7,000 people, including around "iii,200 special agents, ane,300 Uniformed Partitioning officers, and more than than 2,000 other technical, professional and authoritative support personnel."
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Getting a Cloak-and-dagger Service Chore Can Accept Months
The Underground Service notes that a pre-employment "full background investigation takes approximately six to nine months to consummate." And, not surprisingly, not just anyone can score themselves a Hole-and-corner Service gig. Chore applicants must be U.S. citizens, obtain top-secret security clearance, and — in some cases — score a "successful completion of a polygraph examination."
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A Number of Agents Accept Died in the Line of Duty
Since 1902, 37 agents have died in the line of duty, including four women. The nigh recent was Special Agent Nole E. Remagen, who passed away in 2018 after suffering a stroke while protecting national security adviser John Bolton.
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A Bombing Killed the Most Agents in One Twenty-four hours
Six agents died in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Edifice bombing in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. On March 5, 1983, 3 agents passed away in a machine accident while traveling to protect Queen Elizabeth Ii in Yosemite National Park.
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But 1 Agent Has Died During an Bump-off Attempt
Leslie Coffelt, a fellow member of the White House Police force — a sectionalization of the Secret Service — died in November 1950 afterward 2 Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman. Before he died, Coffelt killed one of the assassins, and Truman was unharmed.
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Agents Carry Some Interesting Items
A one-time agent told New York magazine in 2020 that "whatever skillful field amanuensis that is worth their salt will carry" these eight items: an MDI CPR Microshield (a mini CPR kit), a flashlight, a multitool, manus sanitizing wipes, a notebook, mechanical pencils, and a portable charger. That's merely seven — the eighth? Breath mints. The agent told the publication she used them for interrogations, noting: "They're not going to want to talk to you if you have bad breath. They mollusk upwards, they shut up. Role of being a skilful communicator is people wanting to speak with you, and if your breath sucks no ane wants to talk to y'all."
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Not All Agents Wear Uniforms
According to the Clinton White House archives, those Secret Service members that guard the president practice not wear uniforms, which "helps the agents blend in with crowds so that they are non hands detectable." Those in the Uniformed Division — not surprisingly, given the name — practice wear them "considering their jobs crave them to exist recognized as police officers." You'll notice these uniformed offers posted at spots such as effectually the White House grounds, in front of embassies, and at the vice president'south residence.
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They Really Are Talking Into Their Wrists
That talking into your wrist affair isn't but from the movies. The Clinton archives also explain that the Surreptitious Service has "its own unique communications system," which includes a special earpiece connected to a small microphone "that rests just inside the amanuensis's sleeve, allowing him or her to hands communicate merely by speaking into the microphone adjacent to the agent's wrist."
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They're Well Compensated
Surreptitious Service agents are paid pretty well, which yous'd expect for someone willing to put their life on the line for others. According to Glassdoor, agents are paid an average almanac bacon of effectually $145,000. Job site Indeed puts the number slightly higher, at more than than $151,000 per year.
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Secret Service Training Is Extensive
New agents and officers of this division "undergo months of intensive training through established programs at the Federal Police Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia." Officers and so undergo an additional fourteen-week specialized preparation course, and special agents embark on another 18 weeks of training. All parties must as well "receive continuous advanced preparation throughout their careers," which consists of firearms requalification, emergency medicine refresher courses, and more than.
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Beingness a Female person Agent Isn't Easy
Possibly non also surprisingly, the Secret Service apparently isn't a breastwork of enlightenment when it comes to the drinking glass ceiling. Former Special Amanuensis Mary Beth Wilkas Janke wrote an essay for Swaay in which she detailed some of the challenges of beingness a female person Secret Service agent, which included chauvinism, snide comments, and what amounted to a double standard. "It was as if the rookie male agents were automatically causeless to be worthy and vest," she noted, "merely the rookie women and I even so had to bear witness ourselves."
Al Capone by Federal Bureau of Investigation (None)
It One time Used a Car Owned by Al Capone
These days, when most of us recall of Clandestine Service transport, we remember of darkly tinted windows on shiny black limousines. This, of course, wasn't always the case. Every bit the agency's site notes, the "Secret Service initially used horses and carriages, only these were gradually phased out when the automobile became the preferred mode of transportation in the early 20th century." In 1936, for case, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used a 1936 Packard Touring Limousine while visiting New York City in 1938, and was also the showtime president to use an armored limousine. Interestingly, that armored car originally belonged to Al Capone. It was "seized by the Treasury Department in 1932 on an income-revenue enhancement evasion charge."
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Its Annual Budget Is in the 10 Digits
The Undercover Service'southward 2019 upkeep was $2.two billion. That'due south a lot of dollars, of course, simply that figure fabricated up only 3% of the Department of Homeland Security's annual budget, which totaled near $75 billion.
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It Has Non Been Without Scandal
It might non come as news to some that the Underground Service — one of America'due south summit half dozen federal law enforcement agencies — has experienced plenty of misconduct, to put it mildly. So much and then, in fact, that The Atlantic published a story in 2015 headlined, "The Secret Service Disaster: A Timeline." Charges ran the gamut from shoddy investigative work to multiple security breaches, boozer-driving, the hiring of prostitutes, and more. And that was only from 2011 to 2015.
More recently, four agents were suspended this month in the wake of an incidentl in which 2 men allegedly impersonated federal operatives and gifted Secret Service agents rent-free apartments, smartphones and other items. The two men accept been released and put under home solitude.
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Agents Guard Presidents and Their Spouses for Life
In 2013, the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012 reversed a previous law that express protection for erstwhile presidents and their families to 10 years if they served after 1997. Starting with President George W. Bush, U.Southward. presidents and their spouses at present receive protection for life, while their children receive protection up until the age of 16. Sitting presidential family unit members — that'south spouses and offspring — receive protection regardless of age.
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They Travel With Presidential Blood
Agents assigned to protect the president are reportedly trained in "ten-minute medicine," which entails doing whatever is possible to continue the president live until he or she can receive medical attention from more than extensively trained doctors and nurses. Part of this protocol involves traveling with a portion of the president's blood that is meaning plenty to perform a transfusion if needed.
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They're Barred From Getting Close to Charges
Agents are not immune to form close personal relationships with the people they protect for fear that information technology could cloud their judgment. But in a 2021 book, reporter Carol Leonnig claims that an amanuensis tasked with protecting the youngest Trump daughter, Tiffany, was reassigned after the two were observed to be spending too much time together solitary. (Both accept denied that their relationship was anything other than professional.) Leonnig as well asserts that Vanessa Trump, who was married to Donald Trump Jr. when his male parent took office, began dating a Secret Service amanuensis on her family unit's detail "shortly" afterward her divorce; that agent was reportedly non disciplined because "neither he nor the agency were official guardians of Vanessa Trump at that point."
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