Denounce book

Secret Service veterans denounce anti-Clinton tell-all book

Former agents blast writer Gary Byrne for having 'underlying motives.'

By Edward-Isaac Dovere

The author of a new tell-all book about Hillary Clinton could never have seen any of what he claims — he was too low-ranking — say several high-level members of Secret Service presidential details, including the president of the Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service.

On Tuesday, AFAUSSS, which is strictly nonpartisan, is set to release a statement blasting Gary Byrne author of “Crisis in Character,” saying members “strongly denounce” the book, which they add has made security harder by eroding the trust between agents and the people they protect.

“There is no place for any self-moralizing narratives, particularly those with an underlying motive,” reads the statement from the group’s board of directors, which says Byrne has politics and profit on his mind.

AFAUSSS rarely issues public statements of any kind.

The book has rankled current and former members of the Secret Service, who don’t like anyone airing their business in public — but who also take issue with Byrne inflating his role. Byrne was a uniformed officer in Bill Clinton’s White House. But that’s the lowest level of protection within the White House and around the president.

People familiar with West Wing security laugh at the idea that Byrne or any uniformed officer ever would have walked in on Bill Clinton anywhere, whether in a meeting or, as a New York Post article over the weekend claims, in the middle of a make-out session in the Map Room with the late daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale. The Secret Service presidential detail would have stopped him. (That affair was a well-worn rumor during the Clinton years, though strongly denied by Eleanor Mondale, who died of brain cancer in 2011.)

“The inner perimeter is 100 percent controlled by the presidential protective division,” said a former supervisor of the presidential protective division, who asked not to be identified by name.

And if Byrne or any uniformed officer had been posted near a room the president entered, he would have been moved at least 15 yards away, to the outer edges of the security bubble — not quite what Byrne describes in his book: “I stood guard, pistol at my hip, outside the Oval Office, the last barrier before anyone saw Bill Clinton,” according to the Post, which has been teasing excerpts of the book.

“Operationally, one who has the working knowledge of how things are done there would realize that certain of those statements do not coincide with the operational plan,” said Jan Gilhooly, AFAUSSS president and a 29-year Secret Service veteran.

The group’s statement, which POLITICO obtained in advance of its release, very carefully calls Byrne a liar.

“One must question the veracity and content of any book which implies that its author played such an integral part of so many [claimed] incidents. Any critique of management by one who has never managed personnel or programs resounds hollow. Additionally, why would an employee wait in excess of ten years after terminating his employment with the Service to make his allegations public?” it reads.

The closest contact that Byrne could have had, according to Gilhooly and others, is seeing the president or the first lady pass in the hallway — far from the intimate access he would have needed to catch Bill Clinton in the act or see Hillary Clinton fly into the cursing rages he now writes have convinced him that she doesn’t have the “integrity and temperament” to be president.

“There could be a circumstance where a uniformed officer might be in the proximity. It’s not as if it never happens,” Gilhooly said. “It is possible, but not on a continuum.”

The former supervisor of the presidential protective division said that at best Byrne is working from office rumors that he’s cinematically written himself into. People spend decades on presidential details and don’t rack up the number of amazing scenes Byrne claims to have witnessed in just a few years as a uniformed officer.

“Did Gary Byrne hear an anecdotal story being told by a couple of agents? Maybe. But did Gary Byrne see it the way he’s purporting to have seen it? No way. That’s a lifetime worth of events this individual saw in a very short amount of time,” the former supervisor said. “If any of the things he says happened did happen, it was told to him by a third party.”

The Secret Service itself declined comment on Monday. “The Secret Service does not have any statements to offer regarding this former employee or his book,” said spokeswoman Nicole Mainor.

Gilhooly, who served primarily in the details of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, was also an inspector within the Secret Service from 1995 through 1997. During that time, he said, he was constantly in contact with people in the White House, and often with Hillary Clinton — professionally, as well as through the former first lady writing a letter on his behalf to an insurance company with which he was having a dispute after the death of his wife in 1993.

“I never once saw any kind of what I would have considered inappropriate behavior,” Gilhooly said.

Gilhooly said he doesn’t remember ever meeting Byrne, or knowing who he was before word of the book started circulating. The former supervisor of the presidential protective division also said Byrne didn’t ring a bell.

Vanessa Oblinger, Byrne’s publicist for the book, said the claim he didn’t witness the events he describes in the book was “a nonsense charge.”

“He was posted directly outside the Oval Office for three years,” she said.

She cited Byrne’s performance awards and positive evaluations, as well as a letter of appreciation he received from the Secret Service in 1996 for his “commitment, dedication and professional performance.”

“The Clintons always trash the messenger,” Oblinger said, adding later, “This is the first of many Clinton-directed media attempts at character assassination.”