“There is a near-systematic purge happening at the nation's second-largest national security agency,” a senior administration official tells CNN after Donald Trump ordered acting chief of staff MIck Mulvaney to fire Secret Service director Randolph “Tex” Alles. Alles is still in his job, but “has been asked to leave,” CNN reports. NBC is also reporting Alles’ ouster.
The national security agency in the process of being purged is, of course, the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday and a number of other top officials are reportedly on Donald Trump’s to-be-fired list.
The Secret Service got some unwelcome attention recently when a Chinese woman carrying a flash drive full of malware was arrested at Mar-a-Lago, but there’s a question as to whether Trump would have been more upset by the fact that she made it onto club grounds or by the blame-deflecting statement the Secret Service issued saying that “The Secret Service does not determine who is invited or welcome at Mar-a-Lago; this is the responsibility of the host entity.”