Outbreak at Secret Service training center underlines virus’ proximity to White House
The Secret Service sustained a coronavirus outbreak at its training facility in Laurel in August, weeks before President Donald Trump was infected, evidence of growing infections at the agency responsible for protecting the president.
At least 11 employees at the center in Prince George’s County tested positive for the virus even though the agency closed it for several months this year to enforce procedures to mitigate transmission, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.
Some of the personnel are believed to have contracted the virus during training exercises and at a graduation celebration inside a nearby hotel where they did not practice social distancing, the people said.
The agency declined to discuss the specifics of the outbreak but said in a statement that it “has taken significant precautions at its training center to protect the health and welfare of its trainees and training staff.”
There’s no indication this outbreak led to infections among the agents and officers who directly protect the president.
Details about the outbreak were uncovered by the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog group in Washington. The organization brought that information to The New York Times, which independently confirmed specifics with people briefed on the matter. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing delicate personnel matters.
The announcement early Friday that the president and the first lady, Melania Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus gave the outbreak new relevance.
Hours before that, the White House confirmed that Hope Hicks, a close adviser to Trump, also was infected.
Speaking on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Thursday night, the president blamed military and law enforcement personnel for Hicks' exposure.
“It is very, very hard when you are with people from the military, or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them,” Trump said. “You get close, and things happen.”
Law enforcement agencies across the country have struggled with protecting their officers, who, by the nature of their work, come in direct contact with people. That task has been even more challenging for the Secret Service, an agency long understaffed with agents and officers who have been forced to continue traveling during the presidential campaign.
The virus already has affected the service’s operations. At least two members of the Secret Service who were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to help prepare for Trump’s campaign rally in June tested positive for the virus. The next month, Vice President Mike Pence changed his travel plans in Arizona after multiple agents tested positive or showed symptoms of the virus.
Rick Nelson, a former official on the National Security Council under the George W. Bush administration who dealt with homeland security issues, said few other law enforcement agencies faced such pressure to continue operations while at the whims of political candidates prone to travel.
“They have a relatively small workforce that doesn’t allow them to absorb and respond to the fluctuation,” said Nelson, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They’re at higher risk than the general public because they can’t do their job if they’re social distancing.”
The Secret Service trains its officers and agents at a sprawling campus in Laurel just off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The center has mock versions of the White House grounds as well as Air Force One and Marine One, the president’s plane and helicopter.
There is a large parking lot where agents learn how to drive the president’s hulking armored limousine, known as the Beast. Anearby garage houses many of the older limousines the agency has used in recent decades.
As cities began to carry out social distancing guidelines in the spring, the Secret Service closed the training facility from March to June 1.
Agency officials said it reopened in part to respond to mounting pressure to add to the agency’s nearly 7,800 employees. An inspector general report in 2016 found the agency’s training “continues to be hindered by low staffing levels and high operational demands on the workforce.”
The agency enacted various safety procedures, including relocating classes outdoors, instituting temperature checks and requiring agents to wear personal protective gear while participating in close-contact drills, according to Julia McMurray, a Secret Service spokeswoman, who declined to provide a total number of confirmed cases among agents.
“Any U.S. Secret Service employee who may have tested positive would have been immediately isolated and returned home and out of the working environment. Considerations would also be taken to ensure the least amount of contact with the public,” McMurray said.
The agency declined to specify daily staffing levels at the facility. The service reduced the number of classes allowed to train there — normally about 10 groups — to no more than six when it reopened in June. But even those precautions could not stop a virus that has now left more than 200,000 people in the United States dead.
The covert work of Secret Service agents, and how it conflicts with social distancing guidelines, has not captured as much public attention as the law enforcement agencies with visible patrol officers like the New York Police Department, which has had thousands of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. But the task of serving on a protection detail, and specifically training for the job, requires coming into the exact close contact with others that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended against, presenting a unique challenge for the Department of Homeland Security agency.