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发帖数: 11530 | 1 Secret Service Switching Up Agents Over Worries About Trump Allegiances:
Report
Mary Papenfuss·Trends Reporter, HuffPost
Thu, December 31, 2020, 11:12 PM CST
The Secret Service is shaking up assignments for President-elect Joe Biden’
s detail because of concerns about some agents’ worrisome ties to Donald
Trump, The Washington Post reported.
Biden supporters have expressed fears that some agents are too closely
politically aligned with the outgoing president, sources told the Post.
Some senior officers who previously protected Biden when he was vice
president will be called back to the White House to again be part of the
contingent assigned to him, according to the Post.
In an example of the concerns that spurred the change, one agent assigned to
Trump was allowed to take a leave to become a White House political aide
and became enmeshed in a particularly contentious, controversial incident
marking his presidency. Anthony Ornato, who worked as White House deputy
chief of staff earlier this year, helped arrange the photo opportunity in
June when Trump posed with a Bible across Lafayette Square in Washington as
peaceful protesters were attacked by federal officers. The protests had been
sparked by the police killing of George Floyd days earlier in Minneapolis.
Ornato also helped arrange Trump’s dangerous political rallies where —
often in violation of local laws — maskless supporters were jammed elbow to
elbow. The rallies were linked to COVID-19 case spikes and deaths from the
disease.
In another instance, Secret Service agents assigned to Trump tried to
persuade their colleagues not to wear masks on trips in order to please the
president, contradicting recommendations from administration health experts,
the Post has previously reported.
More than 130 Secret Service officers who helped protect Trump and Vice
President Mike Pence either tested positive for COVID-19 or were forced to
quarantine because of contact with infected co-workers, the Post reported
last month.
The change in Biden’s protective detail will give him the “comfort of the
familiar,” a former Secret Service executive told the Post. “You want him
to be with people he knows and trusts, and who also know how he operates.” | W***n
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