The U.S. Secret Service is reportedly bringing back agents who previously served on President-elect Joe Biden’s detachment after his campaign raised concerns that certain agents already occupied were politically aligned with President Trump.
A Biden spokesman told Fox News that the transition team “had no comment” on the matter, but the Washington Post reported that at least two members of Biden’s security team when he was vice president will return to head the new team.
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Those on Biden’s former team include Darryl Volpicelli, who will become second in command for Biden’s security detachment, and Brian McDonough, who will become a senior detail supervisor, sources said to the Post.
In addition, David Cho, the current second-in-command of Trump’s protection detachment, will be named the new special agent in charge of Biden’s detachment, the source said.
Security reassignments are not uncommon for the department and agents are expected to provide protection, despite their political views, a federal law enforcement official told Fox News.
The Secret Service has recently been criticized, however, for decisions that allowed former class leader Anthony Ornato to transition to a position in the White House as Trump’s deputy chief of staff.
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Ornato was involved in controversial actions by the Trump team, including a photo shoot at a church outside Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, amid protests during the summer of 2020 criticizing police brutality against blacks.
Ornato will transition back to Secret Service at the end of Trump’s term, becoming the assistant director overseeing the agency’s Rowley Training Center, the Post reported.
The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
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An agency spokeswoman, Catherine Milhoan, told the Post: “The U.S. Secret Service is exclusively authorized to provide protection to the United States and other designated world leaders and remains firmly dedicated to a fully apolitical, non-affiliated standard of excellence in these operations to the political parties of the protégés. “