It wasn’t long after Donald Trump returned to the White House when he and his team started focusing on security details — or more to the point, ending protections for those he didn’t like.
But in the weeks and months that followed, protective details also came to the fore for the opposite reason: Some people that the Republican president does like started receiving enormous security contingents.
At the FBI, for example, the bureau’s deputy director has traditionally maintained a relatively low public profile and has never needed a security team. NBC News reported in April, however, that former conservative media personality Dan Bongino has received 24-hour security from a sizable contingent of agents.
A month later, CBS News ran a related report about White House border czar Tom Homan receiving a security detail that one administration official described as “extravagant,” costing roughly $1 million per month in taxpayer money. The report added, “The border czar at times travels in a four-vehicle motorcade — more cars than the two-car package cabinet members typically use.”
It’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post reported on the most egregious example to date.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s unusually large personal security requirements are straining the Army agency tasked with protecting him as it pulls agents from criminal investigations to safeguard family residences in Minnesota, Tennessee and D.C., according to numerous officials familiar with the operation. The Post’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that this multimillion-dollar initiative has forced the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division to even “monitor residences belonging to the Hegseths’ former spouses.” Naturally, this is applying new strains on the Army agency and its budget. The Post spoke to one insider who said, “We have complete inability to achieve our most basic missions.” The secretary and the Pentagon declined to comment. The reporting, if accurate, is itself striking, but I continue to believe there’s a related story behind the story: On a very regular basis, Defense Department insiders have appeared quite eager to let the public know about Hegseth-related controversies, suggesting the former Fox News host still has more than his share of critics within the building.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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