Zero Fail: the rise and fall of the Secret Service

The first definitive account of the rise and fall of the Secret Service, from the Kennedy assassination to the alarming mismanagement of the Obama and Trump years, right up to the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January 2021 — by the Pulitzer Prize winner and #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of A Very Stable Genius Carol Leonnig has been reporting on the Secret Service for The Washington Post for most of the last decade, bringing to light the secrets, scandals, and shortcomings that plague the agency today — from a toxic work culture to dangerously outdated equipment to the deep resentment within the ranks at key agency leaders, who put protecting the agency’s once-hallowed image before fixing its flaws. But the Secret Service wasn’t always so troubled. The Secret Service was born in 1865, in the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but its story begins in earnest in 1963, with the death of John F. Kennedy. Shocked into reform by its failure to protect the president on that fateful day in Dallas, this once-sleepy agency was radically transformed into an elite, highly trained unit that would redeem itself several times, most famously in 1981 by thwarting an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But this reputation for courage and excellence would not last forever. By Barack Obama’s presidency, the once-proud Secret Service was running on fumes and beset by mistakes and alarming lapses in judgement: break-ins at the White House, an armed gunman firing into the windows of the residence while confused agents stood by, and a massive prostitution scandal among agents in Cartagena, to name just a few. With Donald Trump’s arrival, a series of promised reforms were cast aside, as a president disdainful of public service instead abused the Secret Service to rack up political and personal gains. To explore these problems in the ranks, Leonnig interviewed dozens of current and former agents, government officials, and whistleblowers who put their jobs on the line to speak out about a hobbled agency that’s in desperate need of reform. ‘I will be forever grateful to them for risking their careers,’ she writes, ‘not because they wanted to share tantalising gossip about presidents and their families, but because they know that the Service is broken and needs fixing. By telling their story, they hope to revive the Service they love.’

About the Author :
Carol Leonnig is a national investigative reporter at The Washington Post, where she has worked since 2000. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller A Very Stable Genius, Leonnig is also an on-air contributor to NBC News and MSNBC. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and two children.

Review :
‘Terrifying … There is certainly heroism here, and there are certainly plots that were foiled, and there are certainly instances of an agency in the moment being well run and foiling an attack and chasing something down and being on top of stuff. But there is an astonishing litany of stuff they have done wrong and scrapes we have narrowly avoided in this country by the skin of our teeth and through sheer luck … It just flips your stomach up and down. This is one of those books that will go down as the seminal work — the determinative work — in this field.’ ’This book is a wake-up call, and a valuable study of a critically important agency.’ ‘Zero Fail is an important book, one that will ruffle feathers in need of ruffling and that will be useful to legislators, policymakers and historians alike.’ ‘Here is journalism as a true and honest public service … [Zero Fail] is just terrific.’ ‘Leonnig's power and authority in Zero Fail is in the marriage of the big picture with details that put a stamp of 'true' on her analysis.’ ‘Zero Fail, Carol Leonnig’s deeply-researched history of the agency, abounds in the colour of a valet’s-eye view of recent holders of this office.’ ‘A pacy and absorbing account of the secret service’s heroics, close calls, and blunders.’ ‘Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter Leonnig paints a damning portrait of a federal agency in crisis … A solid case for restructuring a neglected and neglectful agency whose job is too important to admit laxity.’ ‘A wonderful takedown of the myths that secret service agents are the pillars of an impenetrable wall around the US president … Zero Fail is an extended account of the triumphs and failings of the service, including the near misses and ‘successful’ attempts on the lives of the president and others.’ Praise for A Very Stable Genius: ‘[Rucker and Leonnig] are meticulous journalists, and this taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump's shambolic tenure in office to date … A Very Stable Genius flicks the lights on from its first pages.’ Praise for A Very Stable Genius: ‘Richly sourced and highly readable … It is not just another Trump tell-all or third-party confessional. It is unsettling, not salacious.’ Praise for A Very Stable Genius: ‘Imagine, for a moment, a high-octane courtroom prosecutor summing up for the jury a case built on the vivid testimony of multiple eye-witnesses … You could scarcely ask for more capable advocates. Leonnig won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the US Secret Service in 2015, then joined Rucker and others on a team awarded the Pulitzer for stories on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Their new, collaborative account … walks readers step by step through the first 30 months or so of a presidency like no other. They leave little doubt that they and many of their sources regard that presidency as an unmitigated and deepening disaster — a threat to American government as we have known it. Whatever may happen to that impeachment effort in the weeks and months ahead, it creates a moment of intermission in the Trump saga and a chance to consider how the landscape has already been altered by this president. A Very Stable Genius offers a harrowing companion narrative to be read during intermission.’