A former U.S. Secret Service agent has launched a stinging attack on the Clinton administration staff he used to protect – branding them arrogant and claiming that ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton was aloof.
Breaking from tradition, Dan Emmett has laid bare a series of anecdotes about the inner workings of the White House in a controversial book.
http://liarcatchers.com/executive_protection.html
He tells how Mrs Clinton, now Secretary of State, never said ‘thank you’ to agents, unlike her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Chelsea
This trait, he added, was found in even greater measure among the young White House personnel, whom he said displayed ‘fundamental traits of rudeness and arrogance’ which, at times, bordered on dangerous.
‘Most of these youngsters were from wealthy families and many viewed Secret Service agents as the hired help,’ he wrote in the autobiography Within Arm’s Length
One unnamed Clinton employee treated a Russian KGB agent on one presidential visit ‘as if he were dealing with a Wackenhut security officer in Toledo.’
He also accuses Mr Clinton of putting his own life and those of his agents at risk by insisting on a ‘totally pointless photo op’ on the North Korea-South Korea border.
During the trip in 1993, he said the former President went too far along the bridge separating the two nations, according to the Washington Examiner.
‘No-one seemed to know if President Clinton grasped how potentially dangerous this stop on the bridge was,’ he writes.
‘The Secret Service obviously believed this move unwise’
He added: ‘Nevertheless, he was POTUS and he wanted to stand on the bridge, so stand on the bridge he would do.’
In another account, Emmett said Mr Clinton ‘dealt us this nightmare’ by insisting on jogging in public.
Agents tried to change his mind and even went as far as building a quarter-mile track inside the White House confines.
But Mr Clinton was unpersuaded and asked the presidential protective division to come up some routes outside the grounds, it was reported on Chicago Tribune News.
‘The worst thing for the Secret Service is to take a sitting president into public when no one has been swept and anyone could be out there,’ he said.
Emmett, who also served under George H.W. Bush and now works as a teacher, has been criticised by the service for publishing his tell-all.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan ‘It causes concern because we don’t want to erode the trust that we have with our protectees.’
