Do you remember what Trump said in 2015 about illegal immigrants from Mexico? “They’re not sending their best. ... [S]ome, I assume, are good people.” Increasingly, I hear those words echoing in my ears when I think about the United States Secret Service (“USSS”) agents responsible for protecting not only Donald Trump but all our top-level federal politicians. It turns out that Secret Service agents are not necessarily steely-eyed men who dedicate every minute to doing their job to the best of their abilities. Too often, they’re incompetents, with some possibly tainted by ideological corruption.

The latest Secret Service agent to fall off the pedestal of historic respect is alleged to have sexually assaulted one of Kamala Harris’s female staffers:

The special agent in question and several Harris staffers were dining and drinking alcohol at a local restaurant after wrapping up work for the day. The group went back to the Harris staffer’s hotel room when the Secret Service agent in question allegedly forced himself on the woman staffer, groping her in the process – actions that were apparently witnessed by other people present.

One source in the Secret Service community said the accused agent was so inebriated that he was kicked out of his hotel room by co-workers and passed out in the hallway, where photos were taken of him.

Currently, the agent is facing an internal disciplinary hearing. However, if that investigation shows that he did sexually assault the woman in question, that’s not just a job failure; it’s a criminal action. It’s not clear whether, if he’s found to have acted criminally, the matter will be turned over to federal or Georgia authorities. Ironically, the alleged assault seems to have taken place in Fani Willis’s Fulton County.

Sexual assault allegations, if proven true, are bad enough. However, these charges are just the latest in a long line of embarrassing USSS failures.

The most notable failure, of course, was Butler, Pennsylvania. If you want to know what the USSS did wrong, you can read the interim report from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. It’s a depressing litany of planning failures, communication failures, equipment failures, intelligence failures, and sheer incompetence.

The USSS came very close to failing again last week at Mar-a-Lago. Apparently, things like drones, noticing cars parked for 12 hours near Mar-a-Lago, using heat tracking apparatus to locate people hiding in the foliage...all of those were alien to the USSS staff. Having said that, it seems that the attempted assassination wasn’t solely the team’s fault. As best as I can tell, despite the Butler attempt on Trump’s life, the USSS hasn’t bothered to increase Trump’s security detail.

Thus, I do believe that there’s a deliberate element to the failures around President Trump’s security. However, it’s plain that some of what’s going on with the USSS falls into the “never ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence” category. This incompetence starts with hiring and personnel management.

In April, a female agent on Kamala’s team had a complete mental breakdown and began to speak in gibberish and attack other agents. Last month, another Secret Service agent took time off from her duties to invite her family to join her in an off-limits area so she could nurse her baby. There was also the time that Kamala’s security detail broke into a hairdressing establishment to use its nice bathroom. No wonder Joe Biden said that the USSS needs help.

There are few things more destabilizing to a nation than political assassinations. Since President McKinley’s assassination, the Secret Service has protected not just politicians but America itself. However, it’s apparent that the Secret Service is no longer up to the job, which should worry us all.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the problem is partly due to rampant partisanship, which sees the agents, from the management on down, not trying very hard to protect Donald Trump. However, looking at the problems with Kamala Harris’s detail, I keep returning to Donald Trump’s words: “They’re not sending their best. ... [S]ome, I assume, are good people.”

A fish rots from the head, and whatever hiring metrics the USSS management is using (and I assume DEI factors into it), those metrics aren’t working. The USSS is hiring mediocre people who are doing a mediocre job.

Image: YouTube screen grab (edited).