By Mary Papenfuss *
One agent took a leave to help arrange Trump’s controversial Bible photo op in June when peaceful protesters were attacked by federal officers.
The Secret Service is shaking up assignments for President-elect Joe Biden’s detail because of concerns about some agents’ worrisome ties to Donald Trump, The Washington Post reported.
Biden supporters have expressed fears that some agents are too closely politically aligned with the outgoing president, sources told the Post.
Some senior officers who previously protected Biden when he was vice president will be called back to the White House to again be part of the contingent assigned to him, according to the Post.
In an example of the concerns that spurred the change, one agent assigned to Trump was allowed to take a leave to become a White House political aide and became enmeshed in a particularly contentious, controversial incident marking his presidency. Anthony Ornato, who worked as White House deputy chief of staff earlier this year, helped arrange the photo opportunity in June when Trump posed with a Bible across Lafayette Square in Washington as peaceful protesters were attacked by federal officers. The protests had been sparked by the police killing of George Floyd days earlier in Minneapolis.
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