Agents liked John Snow because he loved to chat and joke with them.
“John Snow was kind of a pretty cool protectee, in that he knew every guy on the detail,” an agent says. “He’d sit in the back of his limo, and he’d talk with you. It was like a group of guys hanging out.”
But Snow, a former chairman and chief executive officer of CSX Corporation, had what agents on his detail believed was a mistress in Richmond where he and his wife lived. While Snow rented and later bought an apartment in Washington, he would travel back to his hometown almost every weekend, incurring huge expenses for taxpayers because the Secret Service had to drive him the two hours to Richmond and stay in hotels.
The Secret Service gave the woman the unofficial code name Area 51, after the supersecret air force testing ground that gives rise to conspiracy theories.
Now chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, which owns 80.1 percent of Chrysler Corp., Snow commented through his Richmond lawyer Richard Cullen, a former Virginia state attorney general and personal friend of the Snows for more than twenty-five years:
“John Snow did not have an affair…. The agents who refuse to identify themselves in making this accusation are simply and sadly very wrong.”
Agents who were on Snow’s detail say otherwise. Snow “was messing around quite a bit, and it was pretty disturbing to the guys on the detail, because we knew we were away from home for the express purpose of him to meet up with his mistress,” says a former agent who was on his detail.
When the woman’s husband was out at church on Sunday mornings, “The secretary [Snow] would say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to drop a book at their house,’” an agent recalls. Or Snow would say he had just found an article in the Richmond paper he would like to give them.
“That was grating on us, because we had to spend every weekend in Richmond, and during the week he was traveling pushing Social Security reform, so we were on the road all week,” a current agent says. “We were never home. And it pissed us off no end to realize that the only reason we were in Richmond was for the secretary to mess around.”
One morning, another agent was walking by the front window of Snow’s house in Richmond and saw Snow and the alleged mistress kissing. She would also fly to Washington to see Snow at his rented apartment near what agents refer to as the Hinckley Hilton, the Washington Hilton.
“She knew all of us by name,” the former agent says. “She’d just come out of the woodwork out of nowhere and say, ‘Hey guys!’ We’d go on hikes, and they’d be there. She was always around.”
“He really thought he had us fooled on that one,” another agent says. “She would show up at like a hotel in New York, and he would act like, ‘Oh, look who it is!’”
Early on, after Snow was appointed treasury secretary in February 2003, he would travel to Richmond with his Secret Service detail on Saturdays and return on Sundays.
“It didn’t take long for him to realize that he could leave fairly early on Friday, come back late Sunday,” an agent who was on his detail says. “And then it didn’t take long much past that to realize that he could get there early Friday, leave Monday morning, and make it to work on time. So it became Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.”
Snow resigned in June 2006. By then, “He would leave on Thursdays, come back on Monday,” an agent remembers. “So that makes five days in Richmond. And he was going every weekend.”
“I think he legitimately liked Richmond,” says an agent. “He had a nice place on the river with a nice big pool. But you’ve got six or seven guys on the detail, he’s spending four or five days a week in Richmond. You do the numbers, and you’re running out of bodies pretty quick to cover that.”
Snow’s wife rarely came to Washington and seemed to despise the agents.
When Snow was in town, she expected agents to bring in the mail and the newspaper. The mail was not screened, and agents are not supposed to perform personal errands. While some agents did so as favors, most did not.
One Sunday, Snow’s wife came out in her bathrobe and asked an agent, “Why don’t you deliver the paper?”
“It’s not my job to deliver your paper; you can get your own paper,” the agent responded.
“That didn’t go over too well,” the former agent says. “I was there to keep the secretary unharmed—as well as her, if possible—but I most certainly was not her paper boy.”
“Nothing amazes me anymore, but apparently she [Snow’s wife] didn’t suspect anything,” an agent says. “It was going on the entire time he was under our protection, and it was obviously going on prior to that. It was just more convenient with us around.”
The agents say there was one close call. One Sunday when Snow was with his alleged mistress, her husband came home from church early.
“One of our agents saw what was happening,” says an agent. “To his credit, he got out of his vehicle and started making as much noise as he could.” Loudly, the agent called out the husband’s name and said to him, “Hey, great to see you.” The agent slammed the doors of his Suburban. As the husband was walking into his house, Snow came out, his hair messed up.
What infuriated the agents was the way Snow seemed to think he was pulling the wool over their eyes. On one occasion, Snow said he wanted to go for a walk.
“He gets into the car, and we take off, and he says, ‘Go down this road down here,’ which was a dead end with a museum at the end. Well, we get down there, and she’s [the alleged mistress] down there with the hood of her car up.”
Snow said, “Oh, looky here! What’s happened here?”
Saying her car had broken down, the woman asked for jumper cables to help charge the battery. Sensing a ruse, one of the agents suggested they try starting the car first. Snow insisted that would not work. After the jumper cables were attached, the car started without any hesitation.
“We better follow her home, just to make sure the car doesn’t cut off again,” Snow said.
“So we get her home, and he’s there for about an hour, hour and a half,” an agent says.
“He thought we weren’t smart enough to realize what was going on,” another agent says. “That’s what really drove a lot of guys crazy.”
In denying that Snow had an affair with Area 51, Snow’s lawyer Cullen put the author in touch with Tom Greenaway the leader of Snow’s detail for the first half of his term. Greenaway said that the woman in question was not Snow’s mistress.
“I was with him fifteen hours a day, sometimes twenty-five days a month,” Greenaway said.
As it turns out, Greenaway became a golfing buddy of Snow’s while he was protecting him. That is considered a no-no in the Secret Service because a personal friendship could lead an agent to do favors beyond his duties or to back down on security issues. In addition, agents who become friends with top protectees may start trying to push their weight around with their bosses.
In response to a question, Greenaway acknowledged that the Secret Service tried to give him what he called a “punitive” transfer after he had a disagreement with management. He confirmed that Snow intervened with the Secret Service director to delay any transfer off Snow’s detail for several months until after the 2004 election. Greenaway said he then retired.
Cullen said neither Snow nor his family “improperly used the services of the U.S. Secret Service detail assigned to him. The Secret Service is required to protect the secretary of the treasury” Cullen said. “Protection is mandatory. It is not discretionary. Nor is it assigned on the basis of a threat assessment for a particular event or trip.”