This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
The FBI recently raided the home of a Secret Service agent on Vice President JD Vance’s detail in an alleged tax and wire fraud case involving millions of dollars in donations and grants.
In the alleged scheme, the agent accepted donations to a charity that purports to help inner-city youth and victims of domestic violence but didn’t provide the services it reported to the IRS, according to several knowledgeable sources in the Secret Service community.
The raid, which took place on or around Dec. 8, was the culmination of more than a year of work by a joint FBI-IRS investigation that the Secret Service joined in recent months, the sources said. Federal investigators have interviewed more than a dozen Secret Service agents, some of whom contributed to the nonprofit at the center of the probe, which is run by an agent on Vance’s detail.
The Secret Service has placed the agent on unpaid administrative leave and suspended his security clearance, signs that the agency considers the potential crimes and misconduct extremely serious, even though the individual has not been arrested, according to sources familiar with the matter.
RealClearPolitics has reached out to the USSS and has been told a statement is forthcoming.
The alleged fraud could further bruise the Secret Service, which is facing retention problems as it struggles to regain its once elite reputation after two Trump assassination attempts last year. In addition to potential criminal prosecution, the Secret Service agent could face internal insider threat allegations for demonstrating poor judgment and possible criminal intent.
“This is bigger than the 2012 prostitution scandal because agents are trained to investigate tax and bank wire fraud – anyone involved knew what they were doing was illegal,” one source remarked.
In 2012, more than a dozen Secret Service agents and other personnel were placed on administrative leave, and several were eventually fired after their superiors discovered they had hired prostitutes during a trip to Colombia to prepare for then-President Obama’s visit to the Summit of the Americas.
The agent whose home was raided is listed as the founder and chairman of the charity’s board of directors on tax documents filed with the IRS.
The charity in question purports to provide laptops to young inner-city youth in its “Laptops for Hope Program” – at least some of which are laptops donated by the Secret Service because they are beyond their warranties, according to knowledgeable sources. Investigators, however, are looking into whether laptops discovered in the basement of the agent’s home were ever donated to the youth or whether there were plans to do so.
In tax documents, the charity states that its mission is to provide “emergency assistance to survivors of domestic violence, financial literacy, preventing childhood obesity, & [stet] supporting families affected by HIV/AIDS in VA, MD, DC, & GA.”
The alleged tax and wire fraud schemes could implicate numerous Secret Service agents and employees, some of whom allegedly donated to the charity and then received part of their donation back in a payment. Investigators are looking into whether the donations allowed the Secret Service agents to file deductions and write off numerous work-related expenses, the sources said.
The charity has been operating since 2022, receiving $351,329 in contributions and grants in its first year while paying just $23,000 in salaries, tax documents show. In 2023, contributions and grants shot up to $806,409, and the nonprofit paid its officers a total of $154,590. Those numbers increased to $979,053 in contributions and grants in 2024, the latest tax document available. That year, the charity reported paying $267,221 in salaries.
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