CNN, USA Today and other mainstream media outlets reported some good old fashioned fake news on Monday.
The Counterfeit News Network said, “Secret Service can’t pay agents for Trump and his family.” The newspaper noted, “The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.”
Is this true?
Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles did confirm that “more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.” He added that 42 people in the Trump administration need Secret Service protection, compared to 31 under former President Barack Obama.
But here’s the kicker: 1,100 Secret Service agents will be paid and compensated for overtime hours and all of the funding has been met for the rest of the fiscal year. A similar situation occurred last year:
“The Secret Service estimates that roughly 1,100 employees will work overtime hours in excess of statutory pay caps during calendar year 2017. Our agency experienced a similar situation in calendar year 2016 that resulted in legislation that allowed Secret Service employees to exceed statutory caps on pay,” he said.
The real problem, according to Alles, is that the pecuniary issues for the Secret Service that have been ongoing for the last decade due to the increase in “operational tempo.” Simply put: Secret Service funding has been a problem since 2007, long before Trump entered politics.
To remedy the matter, the Secret Service has been working with Department of the Homeland Security, the administration and the Congress.
The president has been a disaster thus far, but this isn’t on Trump – the hypocrisy is hilarious, though, considering he bashed his predecessor for all of the golfing vacations. Don’t tell that to CNN and his detractors, though. Everything is his fault, including the solar eclipse, which is racist.
On the Secret Service matter, let these presidents and other public officials take government transit.
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