I was in a rush to get to church when I made my last post, and one of the options I forgot to include is that there is no reason this incident could not be a combination of scenarios.
It may indeed have been a genuine case of a lapse in judgement and breach of professional conduct on the part of some agents. However, those actions could also be seen as providing a useful pretext for a purge of the Secret Service. Those are not mutually exclusive propositions to a regime that believes it should “never let a crisis go to waste”.
As you noted, in the past these things have usually been hushed up, but this time the regime itself is pushing the story. The question is why? They are a lot of things, mostly bad, but they don’t deliberately do things to make themselves look bad, so why make this effort to embarrass and discredit the Secret Service now?
To repeat, I don’t know the facts and the truth of this, but I believe it’s a mistake to just dismiss it as merely some dumb agents getting caught in shameful conduct. We’ll just have to wait and see what form any further shakeouts in the SS take.
I agree with your post. IF Barry the Beloved didn’t want this story told, it would NOT be reported. I wonder why the SS “needs” put in its place ? There were also rumors “out there on the web” that Moochelle has a “special friend” in the Secret Service. Odd timing there...
But the first thing that struck me when this story broke...it was a “language issue” between the agent and the pro. Really? Advance team members sent to a foreign country DO NOT have even a basic understanding of the native language? Riiiight....