U.S. Marshals Service Cannot Disclose ‘Nature of Threats Against the Secretary’
Unlike any Secretary of Education before her, Betsy DeVos has U.S. Marshals protecting her daily, and it’s costing taxpayers a small fortune. While we won’t hear of the private schools advocate spending money on private planes – she’s a billionaire and uses her own plane to travel the country – DeVos for reasons unknown does not use the Education Department’s small security force but rather has contracted with the U.S. Marshals. The latest contract, according to Politico, “could cost up to $6.54 million from now through the end of September 2018.”
Calling it “extremely unusual” for DeVos to be protected by marshals, Politico notes the Education Department “paid the marshals $5.28 million for her protective detail from February through September of this year,” which was “about $2.5 million less than what was projected.”
Drew Wade, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said he couldn’t disclose the number of employees protecting DeVos or the “nature of threats against the secretary” due to “reasons of operational security.”
Recently, DeVos has come under fire for rescinding Education Dept. guidance for students who are disabled, and days later, guidance helping to protect the rights of minority students. In February, as one of her first acts, DeVos rescinded guidance helping protect transgender students.
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