The Secret Service

2000-2022 | 22 years

In this episode, Toby and Sam have finally made Judge Mendoza a Supreme Court Justice, but neither of them gets a day's rest as Toby has to help Mandy get a Panda Bear and Sam argues with Mallory over school vouchers. During this time Josh is meeting with a civil rights lawyer to discuss his quote on the back of a dust jacket.

While all this is happening, C.J. looks for answers about a party Zoe went to where her friend was arrested for possession of and intent to distribute drugs. C.J. approaches Zoe’s Secret Service Agent, Gina Toscano, and asks her what happened, but Gina replies “I'm sorry, C.J. I can't protect her if she feels she has to do things behind my back. I'm not permitted to discuss the behavior of the protectee.”

Recently, the Secret Service has been popping up in the News as it was found that they lost the texts related to January 6th. Although they were not in charge of defending The Capitol against the rioters, they were in charge of defending The President and Vice President while the attack on the capitol was happening, as they always are. It came out during one of the January 6th hearings that Vice President Pence refused to get in a car after he was brought to a secure location, even though the head of his security detail assured him that they wouldn’t drive out of the building without his permission. What’s even more intriguing is the Vice President’s response, him allegedly saying “Tim, I know you, I trust you, but you’re not the one behind the wheel.”

This is so shocking because as shown by Zoe and Gina, Protectees often place a great amount of faith and trust in their Secret Service Protectors.

We don’t know what exactly the Vice President feared happening when he got in the car; was it that they would take him away for his own safety, or that the driver may have been taking orders from former President Trump?

Either way, he feared that the World would see the Vice President of The United States fleeing The Capitol and that he may not be able to get back to certify the election.

In the second episode of The West Wing, one character points out, “In the event of a military coup, sir, what makes you think the Secret Service is gonna be on your side?”

What’s so scary about this situation is that the Vice President didn’t seem to know what side the Secret Service was on.

Trust between a protectee and the secret service is obviously crucial to the protectee's safety. This brings up the question of how much the secret service should be allowed to comment on in situations such as January 6th. To preserve democracy, elected leaders have to be safe, however, to preserve democracy the people need to know what is happening in their government. The question is how to balance these things.