The Secret Service is supposed to protect America's leaders.
But the agency can't seem to stay out of scandal.
And a Secret Service agent protecting JD Vance was raided by the FBI for one scary reason.
FBI raids home of agent on Vice President's detail
The FBI raided the home of a Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President JD Vance's protective detail on December 8 after more than a year investigating alleged tax and wire fraud involving millions of dollars in charity donations.
The agent accepted donations to a charity claiming to help inner-city youth and victims of domestic violence but never provided the services it promised to the IRS, according to sources in the Secret Service community.
Federal investigators interviewed more than a dozen Secret Service agents during the joint FBI-IRS probe, including some who donated to the charity.¹
The Secret Service placed the agent on unpaid administrative leave and suspended his security clearance – signs the agency views this as extremely serious despite no arrest yet.
"This is bigger than the 2012 prostitution scandal because agents are trained to investigate tax and bank wire fraud – anyone involved knew what they were doing was illegal," one source told RealClearPolitics.²
In 2012, more than a dozen Secret Service agents hired prostitutes during a trip to Colombia preparing for President Obama's Summit of the Americas visit, and several were fired.
The difference this time is the agents were trained specifically to investigate the exact crimes they're now accused of committing.
Secret Service agent ran charity as personal ATM
The agent founded the charity and chairs its board of directors according to IRS tax documents.
The charity claims to provide laptops to inner-city youth through its "Laptops for Hope Program" using computers donated by the Secret Service after they exceeded warranty.
But investigators discovered laptops sitting in the agent's basement and are looking into whether they were ever donated or if there were even plans to do so.
The charity's tax documents state its mission is providing "emergency assistance to survivors of domestic violence, financial literacy, preventing childhood obesity, & [sic] supporting families affected by HIV/AIDS in VA, MD, DC, & GA."³
The fraud scheme could implicate numerous Secret Service agents and employees.
Some allegedly donated to the charity and then received part of their donation back in a payment.
Think about that for a second.
Secret Service agents protecting the Vice President allegedly ran a kickback scheme using a fake charity for domestic violence victims.
They wrote off work expenses by pretending to donate to abused women and sick children, then got their money back under the table.
The numbers tell a damning story.
The charity received $351,329 in contributions in 2022 while paying just $23,000 in salaries.⁴
By 2024, contributions reached $979,053 while salaries hit $267,221.⁵
Secret Service can't protect itself from corruption
The alleged fraud comes at the worst possible time for the Secret Service.
The agency is hemorrhaging credibility after two Trump assassination attempts exposed catastrophic failures in 2024.
The Secret Service failed to stop a shooter from opening fire at Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania rally in July.
Trump survived only because he turned his head at the exact moment the bullet passed through where his brain would have been.
Two months later, another shooter set up a sniper position at Trump's Florida golf course before Secret Service spotted him.
Those failures destroyed public confidence in the agency.
A Gallup poll in September showed the Secret Service's job approval plummeted 23 points to 33% – the lowest for any federal agency Gallup has measured.⁶
The agency ranks 413 out of 459 government agencies on the Best Places to Work list, with former agents describing low morale, burnout, and poor management.⁷
Now agents protecting the Vice President are under investigation for running a charity scam.
That's not just embarrassing – it's a massive security risk.
An agent facing prison time for fraud is vulnerable to blackmail or coercion by foreign intelligence services or criminal organizations.
That's not theory – that's basic counterintelligence.
Anyone with compromising information about this agent could leverage it to get access to Vance's schedule, security procedures, or travel plans.
Think about what this really means.
The same agency that failed to stop two assassination attempts on Trump now has agents on Vance's detail running charity scams.
These aren't random security guards – they're trained federal investigators who know exactly how to hide financial crimes.
And they allegedly used that training to steal from domestic violence victims while protecting the Vice President.
The Secret Service didn't catch this fraud.
The FBI had to raid one of their own agents' homes.
Now ask yourself: if Secret Service agents protecting JD Vance are vulnerable to blackmail because they're facing federal fraud charges, who else on that detail has secrets that could be exploited?
Foreign intelligence services and criminal organizations don't need to plant moles inside the Secret Service.
The agency is doing that work for them by keeping corrupt agents on protective details.
After two attempts on Trump's life, the last thing this country needs is Secret Service agents with one foot in federal prison protecting the Vice President.
But that's exactly what we've got.
¹ Susan Crabtree, "FBI Raided Secret Service Agent's Home In Charity Tax Fraud Probe," RealClearPolitics, December 22, 2024.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Megan Brenan, "Secret Service's Job Rating Tumbles 23 Points to New Low," Gallup, September 23, 2024.
⁷ Zachary Cohen and Kyung Lah, "Inside the strain challenging the US Secret Service," CNN, September 25, 2024.
