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Wednesday, October 2, 2019

DeVos' security detail cost $6.24M during the past year - POLITICO

DeVos' security detail cost $6.24M during the past year - POLITICO

DeVos' security detail cost $6.24M during the past year

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ security detail is projected to cost $7.87 million from now through the end of September 2020, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service told POLITICO today.

The Marshals Service said the final cost of protecting DeVos in fiscal 2019, which ended Monday, was $6.24 million. That’s down from $6.79 million in fiscal 2018 and less than the service’s projection last year — $7.74 million — for fiscal 2019.
The service did not disclose why the secretary's protection is expected to cost more in the upcoming year.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which began providing a protection detail for DeVos in February 2017, “regularly conducts threat assessments on Ms. DeVos to determine threats to the secretary’s safety,” according to an official statement.

DeVos’ security detail is highly unusual — the past four Education secretaries have been protected by the Education Department’s own small security force. Her security detail was initially ordered by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

An agreement between the department and the Marshals Service establishes roles, responsibilities and terms between the agencies “to monitor and mitigate threats against the secretary.”

The Marshals Service said the number of personnel assigned to the detail is “commensurate with the existing threat and based on USMS protective service requirements, experience and methodology.

“For reasons of operational security, we will not disclose the number of CONTINUE READING: DeVos' security detail cost $6.24M during the past year - POLITICO