State Department security failure: Former Trump official’s car stolen and used in DC homicide
Tom Rogan
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EXCLUSIVE — On Dec. 11, 2022, while receiving full-time protection from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service in regard to threats from Iran, a former Trump administration official had two personal vehicles stolen from the driveway of his northern Virginia home.
Brian Hook, formerly the State Department’s special representative for Iran, was in his residence while the thefts occurred. Three weeks later, one of those vehicles was used in a Jan. 3 rush-hour shooting in the Brightwood area of northern Washington, D.C. Two adults and an 8-year-old child were wounded in the shooting. One adult male was killed. The association between the car theft and the shooting has not previously been reported.
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The Diplomatic Security Service is a federal law enforcement agency that investigates certain crimes such as visa and passport fraud. It also supervises the security of U.S. embassies abroad and provides personal protection for the U.S. secretary of state, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visiting foreign dignitaries other than heads of state, and certain U.S. diplomats. In response to multiple Iranian assassination plots, however, the Diplomatic Security Service and the Secret Service have provided and continue to provide protective details for a number of former Trump administration officials. The Diplomatic Security Service retains protective details for Hook and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
These threats derive from Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s desire for revenge over the January 2020 assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. As the Washington Examiner was first to report in March 2022, former national security adviser John Bolton was provided with a Secret Service detail in response to a significant IRGC assassination plot. In August of last year, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against an IRGC officer over that plot.
In the context of these threats, the car thefts at Hook’s Fairfax County home are regarded by federal law enforcement officials as a major security failure. The Washington Examiner was able to confirm with the Fairfax County Police Department and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia that one of Hook’s vehicles was used in the shooting. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, one State Department official and one federal law enforcement official also confirmed the incident as described above. The sources said the Diplomatic Security Service had no idea Hook’s cars were stolen until significantly later the same day. Hook declined to comment when contacted by the Washington Examiner. The Diplomatic Security Service has increased security at Hook’s residence following the thefts.
This incident bears some similarity with a person’s undetected intrusion into national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s residence in April. As reported by the Washington Post, Sullivan’s Secret Service detail only learned of the intrusion when he walked outside of his home to inform them.
As the Washington Examiner has previously reported, the Diplomatic Security Service is under strain in relation to its heavy protective mission workload. The agency’s criminal investigations have largely been sidelined in order to provide agents for protective details. Last December, numerous active and recently retired DSS personnel told the Washington Examiner that agents are exhausted and the protective mission near breaking point.
There is also said to be significant tension between field agents and senior management, who agents say refuse to accept a crisis-level mismatch of resourcing and mission requirements. Sources say that short-notice assignments mean that protective details are being regularly altered in complement, tactics, and resourcing without regard for threat assessments. Morale is also low as agents are forced into regular short-notice travel away from home. Sources also say that stretched resources are being unnecessarily drained by the provision of large, so-called prestige protective details for dignitaries who are not facing commensurate threats.
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Hook remains under full-time protection. Still, sources say that if and until the Diplomatic Security Service’s mission requirements and resources are realigned, a catastrophic mission failure is only a matter of time.
Asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson referred the Washington Examiner to FCPD and responded, “The department does not discuss details of its protective operations due to operational and security concerns.”