Following the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson sent a letter to the House Oversight Committee stating that Secret Service agents has asked Nashville police officers to falsify an illegal search warrant against an unnamed critic of Barack Obama, who allegedly posted “threatening” comments about the criminal-in-chief in January 2013.
News 5 reports:
The allegations regarding the January 2013 incident are contained in a letter that Anderson sent last week to several members of the House Committee on Oversight. That’s the congressional committee that has spearheaded the on-going investigation into the Secret Service. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson was recently forced to resign as a result of that scandal.
“There’s already a lot of fodder to attack the Secret Service with, and this will be more,” said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee, who was among the committee members who received the letter.
In the Nashville case, a Secret Service agent made a frantic call for backup to Nashville police after he and another agent went to the home of a Nashville man, investigating threatening comments on Facebook about the President. The man who posted them had refused to let the agents into his house.
“He shoved the door in our face and went around the corner. Looks like, we’re not sure if he … possibly he had a gun in his hands,” the agent told a 911 operator.
In a letter that he first sent to Secret Service headquarters, the Nashville police chief recounted what happened.
“The resident refused to come outside and shouted back, ‘Show me your warrant,'” Anderson wrote.
So “one of the agents then asked a [police] sergeant to ‘wave a piece of paper’ in an apparent effort to dupe the resident into thinking that they indeed had a warrant.”
Congressman Cooper told News 5 that these tactics were basic violations of the Constitution, and they are. The Fourth Amendment states clearly:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
According to Chief Steve Anderson, the police knew immediately that the Secret Service agents didn’t have any legal basis to enter the man’s home and the man, a law abiding gun owner, had never made a threat.
Anderson wrote to then Director Pierson and Assistant Director A.T. Smith stating, “I think you can see that had the MNPD officers complied with the directive from the Secret Service agents, there was likelihood for this event to have escalated into a serious and/or embarrassing situation for both of our agencies.”
Anderson said that there was no acknowledgement of his letter, but that Smith did return his call with a “condescending and dismissive” tone. After that, Anderson demanded a meeting with the Secret Service’s Nashville office (can’t believe we need a Nashville office for these guys). He questioned their ethics of waving around a piece of paper in an attempt to deceive citizens into thinking it was a warrant, to which the Secret Service allegedly answered, “I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.”
On Monday afternoon, the Secret service provided the following statement:
The Secret Service values our relationship with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. The January 2013 incident described by Chief Anderson was addressed by supervisors in the Secret Service Nashville Field Office. In addition, Deputy Director A.T. Smith called Chief Anderson at the time of his letter to our agency to express his regret at the way this incident was handled by field office personnel.We encourage Chief Anderson to continue to work with the Special Agent in Charge of the Nashville Secret Service field office, who is his appropriate contact on matters of mutual concern.
The obvious question should be, why? They have demonstrated that they have no regard for the law. We know of their prostitute scandal and former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino has warned America that things are far worse behind the scenes than the American people know. Perhaps next time, Anderson should simply arrest the Secret Service agents for harassing citizens of his area and charge them. Maybe that would get somewhere with these guys.
In exposing apparent ramifications of the incident, Barry Donegan points out, “back in May of 2013, shortly after the incident, Secret Service agents did not invite Nashville police to assist in providing security for First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to the Music City. It is not known whether the dispute over the warrant factored into that decision, but it is unprecedented for local police to be left out of security plans during a visit by a first lady.”
Personally, I think most people wouldn’t be concerned with the security of Michelle Obama, but are very concerned with the unethical practices of the Secret Service in this incident.
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