Praetorian Guard

Ancient Rome

The Praetorian Guards were the private protectors of the Roman Emperors.  And they were more than just guardians of the Imperial lives.  They were the Emperors’ private intelligence service, keeping track of his enemies for over three centuries.  The Praetorian Guard also became a power unto themselves. They grew from protecting Emperors to determining who would actually wear the throne.  Finally, the Emperor Constantine disbanded the Praetorians, sending the remaining members to the far corners of the Roman Empire.  The inner wall of  their headquarters, the Castle Praetoria, was destroyed.

The term “Praetorian Guard” became synonymous with any force surrounding a leader to maintain his (or her) power.  It’s more than just physical protection, the term “Praetorian” symbolizes the political power to determine who that leader would be.

Secret Service

The United States Secret Service was founded at the end of the Civil War to protect the US Government’s most important asset:  American currency.  At that time, almost one-third of the paper money was counterfeit. The Treasury Department needed its own “policing force” to gain control of the money supply.  

The late 1800’s saw a series of American Presidents assassinated: Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1881, and McKinley in 1901.  While the Army and local police had informal protection duties, ultimately no one was directly responsible for protecting the President’s life.  After McKinley’s death, the Secret Service, still part of Treasury, was given the job.  (The Department of Justice didn’t have a “policing” agency until 1908, and the FBI wasn’t created until the 1920’s.)

No Fail

Since that time, the Service has had two missions:  to protect the US currency, and to protect America’s President and other leaders.  The balance of importance between those two missions tilted over the years, with the Protective Detail gaining importance.  Recently, the agency was moved from the Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security.  

The Presidential Protection detail is a “no fail” operation.  There are thousands of threats on the President every year, from cranks to organized conspiracies.  Success is determined by stopping every single one of those threats.  Failure is when just one gets through.  The Secret Service not only physically protects. It also acts as a law enforcement agency, investigating potential threats and gathering evidence to turn over to US Attorneys for prosecution. 

There have been a continuing series of assassination attempts on the President:   Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Ford, and Reagan were all directly attacked.  Kennedy and Reagan were both hit by gunfire, with Kennedy killed.  In our current polarized environment, the threat to the President must be as intense as ever.  

The Secret Service does not “enforce the law” on its “protectees”.  Steve Ford (President Ford’s son) smoked marijuana in the White House. And we all know what Bill Clinton was doing in the hallways of the West Wing.  The Service needs to have the trust of their charges, so they step back from their law enforcement role to protect. 

And finally, the Secret Service agents on the Presidential protective detail would literally “take a bullet” for their protectee.  Agent Rufus Youngblood used his own body to shield Vice President Lyndon Johnson in the open limousine directly behind Kennedy’s as the shots rang out in Dallas.

Missing Evidence

As a law enforcement agency, the Secret Service is well aware of the importance of evidence.  So it’s incredulous to think that the agency would allow the destruction of their agents’ text messages sent during the greatest threat to the US Government since the Civil War.  But that’s exactly what they are saying:  that in a pre-scheduled technology “upgrade”, they erased many of the Presidential Protective detail messages from January 5^th and 6^th, 2021.

Everyone in the Secret Service is a law enforcement agent, a cop.  Everyone knew the gravity of what happened on January 6^th.  We know that the agents protecting Vice President Pence were just seconds ahead of the mob chanting “Hang Mike Pence”.  We also know that when they planned to whisk him away from the danger in the Capitol, Pence refused to go.  He told the head of the protective detail, “I know you, but I don’t know the driver of the limo”.  Was Pence just doing his duty to the Constitution, or did he suspect something more sinister?

Protect and Serve

Perhaps the Agency’s Director determined that revealing those texts would put their protective mission at risk.  If Presidential Detail agents are used as “evidence” against a “protectee”, then the Service won’t be trusted the next time.  Bill Clinton’s detail were ordered to testify about Monica Lewinsky (WAPO), a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court.  By deleting the texts, there one less piece of evidence to talk about.

And we also know that Donald Trump, President of the United States, wanted to be with “his people” as they marched on the Capitol.  The testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson revealed conversations about an altercation in the Presidential SUV, as the Commander-in-Chief was told that the Protective Detail would not take him to the march.  A Metro Police officer assigned to the motorcade substantiated the story.

But what were these Service agents saying to each other, on the “privacy” of government issued phones? That won’t be known.  And like Mike Pence, it leads the nation to ask:  were they protecting their charge, or enabling a threat to the Nation?

The Secret Service protects the President.  It is not, and cannot be, a Praetorian Guard.