U.S. Secret Service agents have been accused by Nashville's police chief of attempting to use a fake warrant to enter the house of a man suspected of making inappropriate and threatening online comments about President Barack Obama, according to a letter sent to several members of the House Committee on Oversight last week.
In the January 2013 incident, Nashville Chief Steve Anderson's officers were asked to aid local Secret Service agents in creating a fake warrant after they failed to enter an unidentified man's house, NewsChannel 5 reported. Later in the report, Anderson alleges that his complaints to top Secret Service officials in Washington about the incident were met with disinterest.
"There's already a lot of fodder to attack the Secret Service with, and this will be more," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee, who was among the committee members who received the letter. "What [Anderson] talks about is abuse of power by the Secret Service, not just in Washington, but here in Nashville. So that's concerning."
Police officials are legally permitted to enter a premises only through a search warrant, which is completely dependent on the approval of a judge. Without the warrant, the police would need the permission of the occupant to enter the home.
Since the man, who was well aware of his rights, refused to let the agents enter his house, they asked local Nashville police to intervene and provide them with a fake search warrant.
"He shoved the door in our face and went around the corner. Looks like, we're not sure if he ... possibly he had a gun in his hands," the agent told a 911 operator.
However, Anderson's officers informed the agents that the man inside, who may or may not have been armed, was a registered gun owner, had not broken any laws, and could not be searched without a proper search warrant, according to TPNN.
So "one of the agents then asked a [police] sergeant to 'wave a piece of paper' in an apparent effort to dupe the resident into thinking that they indeed had a warrant," Anderson recounted in the letter, adding that his officers firmly declined the request.
Following the disturbing incident, Anderson tried to contact then-Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and Assistant Director A.T. Smith to discuss the misconduct. While Pierson never returned his call, Smith allegedly "was condescending and dismissive. I realized that I was being told, in a polite manner, to mind my own affairs."
"I think you can see that had the MNPD officers complied with the directive from the Secret Service agents, there was likelihood for this event to have escalated into a serious and/or embarrassing situation for both of our agencies," Anderson wrote to Pierson and Smith, but again failed to receive any acknowledgement for the letter.
"Frankly, this is not a good way to do business. I completely recognize the need for our two agencies to work together, but at the same time I find it necessary to protect the personnel I am responsible for from being compelled to engage in questionable activities," he added.
On Monday morning, a statement regarding the incident was finally issued by the Secret Service.
"The Secret Service values our relationship with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. The January 2013 incident described by Chief Anderson was addressed by supervisors in the Secret Service Nashville Field Office. In addition, Deputy Director A.T. Smith called Chief Anderson at the time of his letter to our agency to express his regret at the way this incident was handled by field office personnel," read the statement.
Meanwhile, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, Thomas Castelli, called the incident an "absolutely appalling" violation of basic constitutional principles.
"If this is something that not all law enforcement -- and I'm talking about from the cop patrolling the streets in our smallest town in Tennessee all the way up to the Secret Service and the FBI -- if this is not something that they're taught, then that's a big problem," Castelli said.
