Secret Service to Give Briefing to Congress After ‘Harrowing’ Incident Within Kamala Harris’ Detail

Concerned about an April incident involving a member of Vice President Kamala Harris’s security detail, the House Oversight Committee will receive a briefing next week on hiring and training issues that may be affecting the Secret Service.

As reported by the Washington Examiner, an armed agent from Harris’s protective detail was involved in a physical altercation with other agents at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C. on April 22.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, wrote a letter to the Secret Service in May requesting more information about the incident and broader concerns related to training, as per Fox News.

“In response to the letter received from Chairman James Comer, the U.S. Secret Service will comply with the House Oversight Committee’s request for a briefing on the topics outlined in the publicly available letter dated May 30, 2024,” a Secret Service representative said.

Comer summed up the incident that led to lawmakers’ concern in a letter to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle,

“It was recently reported that a Secret Service agent, tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris, physically attacked her superior (and the commanding agent in charge) and other agents trying to subdue her while on duty at Joint Base Andrews and assigned to the Vice President’s protective detail,” Comer wrote.

“A Secret Service spokesperson confirmed that the agent had been ‘removed from their assignment’ following the attack and that the agent ‘began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing’ and further described the incident as a ‘medical matter,’” Comer wrote.

Comer noted that lawmakers are concerned that the incident may be indicative of other problems in the agency’s hiring and screening process.

“This incident raised concerns within the agency about the hiring and screening process for this agent: specifically whether previous incidents in her work history were overlooked during the hiring process as years of staff shortages had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort,” he wrote.

Comer referenced a  Bloomberg report claiming “that there is a petition circulating inside the agency that flags concerns about ‘a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training,’ a double standard in disciplinary actions, and a vulnerability ‘to potential insider threats’ that could pose a risk to U.S. national security.”

Real Clear Politics has revealed that the individual involved is Michelle Herczeg, citing undisclosed sources.

According to its report, the person in question arrived at Joint Base Andrews, took hold of a senior agent’s personal phone, and proceeded to remove applications from it.

The senior agent later recovered the phone.

The report said a source told the outlet that the agent “began mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were ‘going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,’” a source told RealClearPolitics.

As the situation intensified, the agent tackled her supervisor and struck him. Subsequently, other agents stepped in, subdued the agent, and confiscated her gun, according to the report.

Real Clear Politics pointed out that in 2016, Herczeg, who was serving as an officer with the Dallas police at the time, filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the department. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

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