How Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can make the Secret Service great again

At a recent church service, a close relative (an avid Trump supporter) mentioned to me that the president-elect needs to clean house at the U.S. Secret Service and staff it with vetted and loyal special agents. 

His comment caught me, a former Secret Service special agent, off guard. I spent the entire church service thinking about how misguided and unfortunate any attempt to politicize the Secret Service would be. But I also thought about ways Trump could refocus and energize a beleaguered agency.   

Here are a few ways Trump could do it without being political. 

I worked with some amazing and incredible people during my time in the Secret Service. I worked alongside Ivy League graduates, Division I and professional athletes, and former members of the Navy Seals, Army Rangers and Delta Force. I daily witnessed my colleagues making great sacrifices to ensure the safety of America’s elected leaders.

The hiring and selection criteria are stringent, but like any other organization, the Secret Service hires individuals from the human race. Sometimes agents fall asleep on post or have negligent firearms discharges. Some don’t meet minimum firearms requalifications. Some can’t pass their physicals. These incidents are rare, but they happen 

When Delta Force or Seal Team 6 have personnel issues, they can dismiss individuals for ‘failure to maintain standards.’ The U.S. Secret Service cannot do this. All special agents are federal employees with civil service protection. They cannot be fired or removed without cause. And the removal process for federal employees can take months or years to resolve. 

This process was evident in the July 2024 congressional hearings after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., repeatedly asked the U.S. Secret Service Director Ron Rowe if the site special agent had been ‘relieved of duty’ or if the agents involved in the rally protective advance had been fired. 

But the bottom line is, even if there were mistakes made that led to the near catastrophic killing of Trump, the agents involved are entitled to civil service protections, according to federal employment rules.  

However, President Trump could sign an executive order that exempts members of the Secret Service from existing civil service rules, allowing for an immediate firing for ‘failure to maintain standards.’ 

I am not saying special agents should be summarily fired from federal service for any infraction. There could be guardrails put into place. For example, if an agent fails at the protective mission, the order could force the Secret Service to clearly demonstrate, using existing legal burdens such as beyond a reasonable doubt, why the agent should be removed. 

The protective mission of the Secret Service is vital to the national security of our country. It is the foundation upon which the rest of our free democracy functions. Presidents must feel free to make national security decisions based on their own judgment. Starting with this basic one: the Secret Service cannot fail at its protective mission.

During my time in the Secret Service, the Counter Assault Team (CAT) was the only special agent assignment that had a rigorous selection process, including physical fitness, firearms and tactical assessment. Additionally, CAT selection and basic courses had very high attrition rates. Pass the physical and tactical assessments, and you continue. Fail and you go back to your previous assignment 

Training for Presidential Protective Detail (PPD) or the Vice-Presidential Detail (VPD) had no such training requirements. PPD had no standards, physical or otherwise, to join or remain in that assignment.   Selection to PPD or VPD was often a patronage selection, and the protective training was a familiarization course rather than a rigorous mental, physical or tactical challenge.

If they haven’t done so already, the Secret Service should make protective detail training extremely challenging and difficult, with stringent firearms and physical fitness standards. Those that are not up to the rigorous standards should be re-assigned.

Those in favor of the Secret Service keeping an investigative profile argue that this is where junior special agents learn the basics of law enforcement, interviewing skills, reading human behavior, conducting surveillances, etc., before applying those skills during protective missions. 

I worked with dozens of agents when I was assigned to the Washington field office that rarely, if ever, conducted an investigation. Some of those agents are now in senior management positions within the agency, including high-level protection assignments.

But investigating financial crimes, as the Secret Service does, rarely requires the skills of a street cop. Rarely will investigating lead to chasing a suspect through the street or drawing a firearm. Second, agents are simply not conducting enough investigations to truly learn that skill set. Third, agents don’t learn how to protect the president by conducting investigations. They learn protection by doing it. 

The Secret Service should relinquish its investigative function to either the Treasury Department or the dozen or more federal agencies that investigate the same financial crimes. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswany should take note that there is a lot of overlap among federal law enforcement agencies. Re-assigning investigations would free up agents to train more to focus on protection.

Here’s something else for Elon and Vivek to note. Why so many field offices around the world? Does the Secret Service really need two field offices in Oklahoma? Or three in South Carolina? Keep the main large regional offices, L.A., Dallas, Miami and, of course, Washington D.C., and focus on protection. 

The Secret Service is the most elite protection agency in the world, and it has always been staffed by highly competent agents. Every protection agency in the world has modeled their protective protocols after the Secret Service. Director Rowe has acknowledged that mistakes were made in Butler, Pennsylvania, and he is making great strides in trying to fix what went wrong to ensure it doesn’t ever happen again.

But remember something else about Butler. All the agents (and uniformed division counter snipers) assigned to the Butler Trump rally immediately reacted upon hearing the sound of gunfire. They were willing to sacrifice their own lives, regardless of who they voted for. So, yes, refocus and energize this beleaguered agency, but ensure that the Secret Service remains a professional and apolitical organization.