“I don’t own a gun, so maybe someone can give me one,” he said, according to the Justice Department.
Media reports claimed that someone yelled “Kill him,” referring to Obama, at two Republican rallies. But Secret Service agents on the scene and videotapes played afterward revealed no such comments. At a rally for Governor Sarah Palin at Clearwater, Florida, a man yelled “tell him” or “tell them” rather than “kill him,” the Secret Service concluded.
Despite the ranting by racists, throughout the campaign the Secret Service saw no spike in credible threats.
John McCain did not initially request protection and claimed he did not need it. After a congressional hearing on April 7, 2008, revealed that he was not under protection, McCain was urged by both his staff and members of Congress to accept Secret Service protection. He then agreed to it, and his protection began on April 27.
The Secret Service worked with the campaigns so it would know ahead of time who the vice presidential nominees would be and when their names would be announced. It then chose a time on the day of the announcement when protection would begin.
Thus, by the time Sarah Palin—code-named Denali—and Joe Biden—code-named Celtic—were nominated for vice president at their respective conventions, they and their spouses were already under protection. Palin’s husband, Todd, was code-named Driller, and Biden’s wife, Jill, was code-named Capri. Protection for the Bidens began on August 23, 2008 and for the Palins on August 29, 2008.
Before protection began, Secret Service director Mark Sullivan and his team met with each candidate. Like nearly all the Secret Service’s twenty-two directors, Sullivan came up through the ranks. A native of Arlington, Massachusetts, Sullivan graduated from Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He began his Secret Service career in 1983 as an agent assigned to the Detroit field office.
In 1996, Sullivan became an assistant supervisory agent in charge within the Office of Protective Operations. He later became deputy special agent in charge of the Counterfeit Division. In 2002, he became deputy special agent in charge of the vice presidential protection division. After briefly serving as deputy director, Sullivan was sworn in as director on May 31, 2006.
While the backgrounds of Sullivan and the deputy director are on the Secret Service website, unlike the FBI, the agency does not announce the names of other Secret Service officials when they are appointed.
When Sullivan talks about growing up in “Aah-lington” (Massachusetts) and playing “haah-ky” he speaks with the typical pahk-the-cah-in-Hahvad-yahd accent. His ice hockey team beats the FBI’s team every year. It’s gotten so Director Bob Mueller jokingly accuses Sullivan of hiring for hockey talent.
Sullivan has a corner office on the eighth floor of Secret Service headquarters on H Street at Ninth Street in Washington. The objects in his office underscore his jock status: a framed photo of hockey great Bobby Orr on the ice, an aerial view of Fenway Park, a cluster of Red Sox caps and signed baseballs and signed footballs.
The traces of a Boston Irish accent fade quickly when Sullivan starts to talk about the job. There are twenty-two hundred working investigations, he says. As he speaks, his brow rises and furrows over his large wide-set brown eyes, and it stays furrowed in a persistent intensity. He leans forward in his chair, his meaty hands slapping his knees for emphasis. He throws himself into things physically. He sits with his legs crossed, his calves massive from all the years of skating.
Besides starting earlier than any other presidential campaign, candidates were taking more overseas trips, Sullivan notes. As a candidate, Obama took a six-day trip to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and Great Britain. Before that he went to Afghanistan and Iraq. McCain traveled to Canada, Colombia, and Mexico.
“The type of crowds we see in the earlier time frame of the campaign are larger than historically we’ve seen for that time frame,” Sullivan says. While the campaign was the longest in history, “I think that our people have reacted to it very, very well,” Sullivan says. “I’ve been very proud of the way they’ve reacted to it.”
In the summer of 2008, the Secret Service asked for and received an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the candidates, in addition to the $106.7 million already budgeted. In all, the Secret Service protected the candidates on 5,141 travel stops. More than 2.8 million people passed through thirty-five hundred Secret Service magnetometers.
That did not include screening 1.5 million people at events attended by the president and other protectees, or screening at the two national conventions, in Denver and in Saint Paul. The Secret Service oversaw security arrangements for the two conventions and set up an off-site communications center at each. The center coordinated the efforts of a hundred representatives from seventy entities ranging from the FBI and local police to local hospitals and utility companies. Manned twenty-four hours a day, each center had tiered seats as in a stadium so those in attendance could easily monitor the screens on the walls.
Every security concern, down to a car being broken into, appeared on a screen with the action being taken to resolve it. At the Republican convention, the Saint Paul Police Department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s office arrested eight hundred protesters. They included three hundred self-described anarchists, most of them affiliated with the RNC Welcoming Committee.
The Secret Service considered the local law enforcement efforts a model of how to handle such threats. Thirteen months earlier, Sheriff Bob Fletcher had organized an intelligence group that infiltrated the Welcoming Committee. A few days before the convention, sheriff’s deputies arrested eight of the group’s leaders and executed search warrants that obtained their plans, maps, and weapons. The group allegedly had planned to barricade bridges, spray delegates with urine, and possibly kidnap delegates. They were charged with conspiring to cause a riot as part of a terrorist act.
At the convention itself in the Xcel Energy Center, several Code-Pink protestors interrupted speeches by Senator McCain and Governor Palin with heckling. As they approached the stage, they revealed pink slips they were wearing. While delegates or the press may have given them guest passes, they also could have obtained them through others who received them from the original recipients. As long as the protesters did not threaten anyone, the Secret Service considered the matter one for the convention’s security force to handle.
“We screen everybody coming in,” an agent says. “If they had posed a threat, we would have addressed it. If they had rushed the stage, if they had tried to get to the protectees, if they had yelled some sort of threat, we would have been involved. But that wasn’t the case.”
Convention security personnel escorted the protesters out, and the Republican National Committee did not press charges.
“They were voicing their First Amendment right to what they had to say, and they were escorted out by the host committee there, so that really wasn’t a Secret Service issue,” Hughes says.
Agents say both Barack Obama—code-named Renegade—and Michelle Obama—code-named Renaissance—treat them with respect, as does Biden.
“Twice Obama invited agents to dinner, including a party for a relative, both at his home,” says an agent who was on his candidate detail. Michelle Obama insists that agents call her by her first name.
“Michelle is friendly—she touches you,” an agent says.
Obama makes an effort to be on time and usually is. If Obama is running late, Michelle gets on his case, saying he is being inconsiderate of his agents. Biden “gets a kick out of shmoozing with agents,” says an agent. “The Bidens buy agents food and are getting to know everyone by name.”