There have been several recent scandals involving the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Secret Service. While these agencies are not directly connected at times they do work together. For instance, the DEA and Secret Service were working together to investigate the Silk Road, and one agent from each department was arrested and charged with wire fraud and money laundering related to their malfeasance in the investigation.
But that’s just an isolated incident, right? Wrong. Time reported last year about 9 high profile Secret Service screw-ups and scandals dating back to 1964; however I’ll only list the most recent three (from their report). In 2014 “three agents were sent home from a trip to the Netherlands after getting drunk the night before the President was set to arrive.
In 2013, two agents were removed from Presidential security detail after sending sexually inappropriate emails to a colleague, which was uncovered when one of the agents was discovered trying to forcefully enter a woman’s hotel room after forgetting a bullet inside.
In 2012, eight agents were fired after it emerged that they had allegedly solicited prostitutes while on an on-duty trip to Colombia.” And according to the Department of Homeland Security, there were 824 cases where Secret Service officials were cited for misconduct from 2004 to 2013. On top of that, a Secret Service agent was recently arrested for attempting to break into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment while carrying his firearm.
Now, let’s look at the DEA. A report from earlier this year showed that ten DEA agents were involved in “sex parties” in which Columbian drug cartels provided the prostitutes. These parties mostly took place in government leased properties, which may have compromised classified information. The report that revealed that information also found 26 allegations involving DEA agents soliciting prostitutes abroad between 2009 and 2012, and “found that the DEA lacks clear policy on whether to report alleged misconduct to headquarters and the DEA provides supervisors discretion when deciding whether to do so.” Additionally, the DEA has been alleged to have helped a single drug cartel smuggle billions of dollars of drugs between 2000 and 2012.
You might be thinking, this is just a few bad apples; but remember the entire statement about bad apples: a few bad apples spoils the bunch. The “few bad apples” in the DEA and Secret Service, not to mention the “bad apples” in the FBI, CIA, TSA, other federal law enforcement agencies, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies, have definitely spoiled the bunches. Aside from the fact that the DEA should not even exist, the level of corruption alone should be enough to convince anyone that the agency should be abolished. The same can be said for the Secret Service: the level of corruption alone should be enough to convince anyone that the agency should be abolished. Because remember, those few bad apples have already spoiled the bunch, so removing the bad apples will not unspoil the bunch!