Secret Service ‘faces evidence it was infiltrated’ by Pakistani intel operation: report

Shocking new information was revealed in court on Thursday following the FBI's arrest of two men impersonating Department of Homeland Security agents.

"One of two men accused of impersonating federal agents and giving actual Secret Service agents gifts and free apartments in Washington has claimed to have ties to Pakistani intelligence and had visas showing travel to Pakistan and Iran, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The men, Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, were arrested Wednesday. The FBI raided a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington, where the men were staying and had been offering free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents and officers," the Associated Press reported.

The case has drawn significant speculation about who was funding the pair — and why.

"During a court appearance Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rothstein said Ali had told witnesses that he was affiliated with the Inter-Services Intelligence agency in Pakistan and that he had multiple visas from Pakistan and Iran in the months before prosecutors believe the men began impersonating U.S. law enforcement officials. Rothstein said the U.S. has not yet been able to verify the veracity of Ali’s claims to the witnesses," the AP reported. "The two men also had surveillance equipment and a high-power telescope, he said. The FBI found evidence that they may have been creating surveillance devices and also found a binder with information on all the residents in the luxury apartment building, which is home to law enforcement officers, defense officials and congressional staffers."

Carol Leonnig, the reporter for The Washington Post who wrote the 2021 book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, was alarmed by the report.

"Almost exactly 10 years after Secret Service ‘s humiliating Cartagena security breach, the agency faces evidence it was infiltrated by foreign intelligence operation. If true this incident is 10 x worse for POTUS security," she noted.