WASHINGTON — A program created under George W. Bush after 9/11 to protect the flying public is being abused by Congress. According to an association representing federal air marshals, the abuse is essentially a VIP “concierge service” for Congress members.
After Jan. 6, the Transportation Security Administration, which runs the Federal Air Marshal Service, began reassigning agents from “high risk” commercial flights to accompany members of Congress instead, Fox News reported.
One such flight, according to a complaint filed with the House Committee on Ethics, involved Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who flew from Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis on April 17, to attend the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin. Waters was already accompanied by two armed Capitol Police officers and two U.S. Secret Service agents when she allegedly requested two air marshals and two more marshals on touchdown to escort her in the airport.
“Congresswoman Maxine Waters utilized numerous government resources inappropriately,” the complaint reads. “Federal Air Marshals were removed from a ‘High Risk’ flight to cover Ms. Waters flight to Minnesota. The High Risk flight took off with no armed law enforcement on board leaving a gap in National Security.”
“Air marshals for Miss Waters trip were assigned high risk missions, they were removed from those missions and assigned to Miss Waters mission on top of her already armed security detail from the Capitol Police,” said Sonya Hightower LoBasco, executive director of the Air Marshal National Council. “That was not an official business trip. We still don’t have any justification as to why government resources were utilized to fly Miss Waters out to Minnesota.”
Said another air marshal familiar with the incident: “It’s ridiculous. Meanwhile, there are 30,000 other flights with no armed agents.”
Waters did not respond to multiple inquiries from Fox News.
The complaint involves other members of Congress as well, although names were not provided in the Fox News’ report.
“Air marshals can only be assigned to high-risk flights. That means flights that have been deemed through our vetted process that have a security risk,” said LoBasco. “When these processes are violated and they’re taken advantage of and they are just tossed to the side now as if they don’t matter, we’re really looking into creating a major problem for ourselves in the aviation domain.”
The Air Marshal National Council said that congressional flights are not their primary mission, according to Fox News.
“Placing FAMs on aircraft simply because a member of Congress requests it is an egregious misuse of government resources,” David Londo, president of the Air Marshal National Council, said in a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General on April 20. “The FAMs are now taking agents off of regularly scheduled ‘high risk’ flights to put them on flights with members of Congress, that in most cases have their own armed federal security details onboard already. It has become akin to a type of extremely expensive concierge service for Congressional members.”
