Why quotas are bad for the Secret Service

On July 13, in Butler, Pa., a beloved father and husband, a girl dad, died protecting his wife and daughter from an assassin’s gunfire.His family played his favorite song, “I Can Only Imagine” by MercyMe, at his funeral.

The Secret Service failed. The inadequacies are too lengthy to list.As detailed in the 133-page interim Senate report, the lead agent failed to flag she had credible intelligence of a threat, which would have caused the event to be moved indoors.

At least eight Secret Service agents knew of a “suspicious” person with a rangefinder a half-hour before the shooting.And yet Trump found himself on stage.

Worse still, not a single person interviewed by federal investigators took responsibility for any of the security failures. This mess is characteristic of an organization lacking mission focus.And sure enough, the first sentence of the Secret Service strategic plan is that the Service achieves “excellence through talent, technology, and diversity.” That’s the Secret Service’s “Vision,” meaning “what success will look like.” Ah.

No wonder the Secret Service lacks mission focus.Its definition of success isn’t protection, it’s an intangible that centers around what people look like.

Confusion isn’t the Secret Service’s problem, it’s the central goal. As part of this diversity-driven vision, the Secret Service committed to a 30% female force by 2030.In a recent Secret Service podcast attempting to flesh that out, an agent merely described that it’s “important to have female representation, if you don’t, it’s a failure on that department’s part.” Former Director Kim Cheatle recognized she had a massive retention problem, losing 48% of her force, but decided to focus on diversifying the agency with women.

The lead advance agent herself apparently failed one or more training exams, was known not to be a top-quality agent, and was promoted anyway. This is no good. As a woman’s organization, IWF is deve...