FOIA suit targets Secret Service director’s DEI push

A judicial watchdog on Friday said it has filed a suit against the Department of Homeland Security for details about a troubling scuffle between Secret Service agents for Vice President Kamala Harris at Joint Base Andrews in April.

The Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from Judicial Watch seeks records of the tussle between an armed female agent and her boss that eventually led to the agent’s removal from the vice president’s security detail.

Coming just days after former President Donald Trump was shot by a would-be assassin who slipped through Secret Service security, the suit could open the door to scrutiny of the agency director’s diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda and push to boost the percentage of female agents.

In the Trump shooting, the actions of female agents have come under fire. Videos show at least one of the female agents fumbling with her pistol and unable to holster the gun just after the wounded Trump was put into an SUV.

The suit follows a request by Judicial Watch made in April. The legal group said the Secret Service did not comply with its requests, prompting this week’s suit.

The suit requests records about a scuffle that took place around April 23. Agent Michelle Herczeg and others were at Joint Base Andrews preparing for a vice presidential trip by Harris, who was still at the vice presidential residence, according to reports and the suit.

At one point, she reportedly attacked her superior, took the phone of another agent and removed apps, and claimed her colleagues were going to “burn in hell” if they didn’t listen to God.

The agent suffered what the Secret Service has characterized as a “medical incident,” according to a report by the Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan.

RealClearPolitics’s Susan Crabtree reported that she was hired by the agency even though she had earlier lost a discrimination suit against a prior employer, the Dallas Police Department.

Included in the request were “all USSS and DHS policy documents related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the hiring, employment, training and discipline of Secret Service agents.” The Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

“The catastrophic security failure behind the attempted assassination of former President Trump shows how the management and quality of Secret Service personnel are urgent issues,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

“The Secret Service’s illicit cover-up of these documents about the Kamala Harris protective detail incident is not reassuring,” Fitton added.

His office has already opened an independent investigation into the Trump assassination plot and the actions of the Secret Service.

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Trump, in accepting the Republican nomination Thursday night, praised his Secret Service team and called those who protected him heroes for protecting him from getting hit by more bullets shot by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks last Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, has come under fire on Capitol Hill for evading questions from lawmakers about the shooting and her DEI policies. She is expected to face questioning at the Capitol next week.