Posts tagged with "Anthony Guglielmi"

Above, a truck crashed into the security barriers on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., adjacent to the White House grounds on Monday night. (Photo source: India Today)

Driver arrested on multiple charges after crashing truck with Nazi flag into White House barriers

May 24, 2023

A 19-year-old Missouri man, accused of driving a truck into barriers near the White House on Monday, May 22, made incriminating statements that have led investigators to believe he was seeking to harm the president, NBC News reports.

The suspect—identified as Sai Varshith Kandula of Chesterfield by U.S. Park Police on Tuesday morning—made threatening statements about the White House at the scene of Monday night’s incident, a law enforcement official told NBC News. A Nazi flag was seized by authorities at the scene.

The charges against Kandula for allegedly “threatening to kill, kidnap, inflict harm on a president, vice president, or family member,” stem from statements he made to multiple law enforcement agencies, according to a Secret Service representative.

The suspect was interviewed by Secret Service investigators Monday night, the agency representative said, during the ongoing probe that also involves United States Park Police, the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police.

Kandula was further charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and trespassing.

Authorities said the preliminary investigation indicates Kandula “intentionally crashed” into the bollards outside Lafayette Park.

No one was injured. The truck was found to contain no weapons or explosives, the official said, without providing further details about the incident.

Asked for their reaction, the official said: “I don’t think there’s any place for a Nazi flag or the statements that he made.”

The white U-Haul box truck crashed into the barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square, just a few hundred feet from the White House, just before 10 p.m. (ET).

President Joe Biden’s exact whereabouts at the time of the incident were unclear. He had met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday night at the White House to discuss the debt limit.

“There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service chief of communications, said in a statement Monday night.

Guglielmi said in a later statement posted to Twitter that the truck had been deemed safe by Washington, D.C., police and that “preliminary investigation reveals the driver may have intentionally struck the security barriers.” Park Police would file charges with investigative support from the Secret Service, Guglielmi said.

The Reuters news agency published an image showing a Nazi-style red flag emblazoned with a swastika laid on the ground beside the van. Reuters, citing its own photographer on the scene and a witness, reported that this and other pieces of evidence apparently taken from the truck had been placed on the sidewalk and were then seized by officers.

Research contact: @NBCNews

Above, a U.S. Secret Service agent stands guard as former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally. (Photo source: Mandel Ngan for AFP)

Secret Service deleted January 6 text messages after oversight officials requested them

January 18, 2022

The U.S. Secret Service erased text messages from January 5 and January 6, 2021, according to a letter given to the January 6 Committee—and reviewed and reported by The Intercept.

The letter was originally sent by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees. Although the Secret Service maintains that the text messages were lost as a result of a “device-replacement program,” the letter says the erasure took place shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications.

The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. In a statement to The Washington Post, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi disputed the timeline—saying that some electronic communications had been deleted in January, while the Inspector General made its request in February.

According to The Intercept, the Secret Service has emerged as a key player in the explosive congressional hearings on former President Donald Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent the 2020 election results from being certified. That day, then-Vice President Mike Pence was at the Capitol to certify the results. When rioters entered the building, the Secret Service tried to whisk Pence away from the scene.

“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence reportedly told the Secret Service detail on January 6. “If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off.” Had Pence entered the vice presidential limo, he would have been taken to a secure location where he would have been unable to certify the presidential election results, plunging the U.S. into uncharted waters.

“People need to understand that, if Pence had listened to the Secret Service and fled the Capitol, this could have turned out a whole lot worse,” a congressional official not authorized to speak publicly told The Intercept. “It could’ve been a successful coup, not just an attempted one.”

Representive Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), a member of the January 6 committee, called Pence’s terse refusal — “I’m not getting in the car” — the “six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.”

But, the Office of Inspector General letter suggests, key evidence in the form of the Secret Service’s electronic communications may never see the light of day. The Department of Homeland Security—the Secret Service’s parent agency— is subject to oversight from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which had requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service between January 5 and January 6, 2021, before being informed that they had been erased.

It is unclear from the letter whether all of the messages were deleted or just some. Department officials have also pushed back on the oversight office’s records request by arguing that the records must first undergo review by DHS attorneys, which has delayed the process and left unclear if the Secret Service records would ever be produced, according to the letter.

Asked about the matter, a DHS Office of Inspector General spokesperson told The Intercept, “To preserve the integrity of our work and protect our independence, we do not discuss our ongoing reviews or our communications with Congress.”

On June 28, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson  testified before the January 6 committee—disclosing that Trump had ordered Secret Service to take him to the Capitol so he could address his supporters. Later that day, Secret Service officials disputed aspects of her account, including her allegation that Trump had reached for the wheel of the presidential limousine and lunged at Secret Service.

A top Secret Service official allegedly involved in the attempt to spirit away Pence on January 6 remains in a leadership position at the agency. Tony Ornato, a Secret Service agent whom Trump made the unprecedented decision to appoint as his deputy White House chief of staff, reportedly informed Pence’s National Security Adviser, Keith Kellogg, on January 6 that agents would relocate the vice president to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg reportedly told Ornato. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.” (Ornato has denied the account.)

Today Ornato serves as the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Training.

Agencies, especially those involved in national security, often use the sensitivity of their work to sidestep oversight—stymying the work of offices of inspectors general. It is not uncommon for inspectors general, particularly effective ones, to face institutional resistance during the course of investigations. Tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, inspectors general are not always welcomed.

Research contact: @theintercept