Well POTUS (President Of The United States for those unfamiliar with the acronym) had some additional comments about this Secret Service agent and the incident, to wit:
"President Bush said Friday that he will be upset if investigators find American Airlines removed an armed Arab-American Secret Service agent from a flight at Baltimore-Washington International
Airport because of his religion or ethnicity.
""There's an inquiry going on as to specifically what took place," Bush told reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "But if he was treated that way because of his ethnicity ... that will make me mad as heck.""
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Fair to say that Secret Service agents assigned to the Presidential detail are highly screened, have passed batteries of psychological tests, and if their behavior was the cause of an incident such as this, would likely find themselves immediately booted off the Presidential detail.
There is no more trusted position in American law enforcement.
As the Secret Service is in the same department (ministry) as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (which makes US currency notes) one can accurately presume that an agent's credentials do not resemble something that was created using Photoshop and run through a xerox copier.
One may fairly surmise that a Presidential detail Secret Service agent placing his gun with the checked baggage would quickly find himself off the Presidential detail and possibly booted from the Secret Service as well. If the gun is stolen or his luggage is misrouted, where would accountability for that result lie?
In this instance, the agent was apparently supposed to fly with POTUS on Air Force One to Texas, but AF One's flight itinerary was changed and he was booked on American Airlines. (One can presume that his ticket would show it was issued by either the White House Travel Office or the Treasury Department.) His originally scheduled flight was cancelled by American and he was rebooked on a later American flight. His clearances had to be amended, and the PIC of the second flight on reviewing the two clearances discerned a discrepancy between them. The discrepancy, which has not yet been further described, could not be resolved to the PIC's satisfaction. Apparently, no attempt was made by American Airlines to contact Secret Service as to the agent's bona fides. At some point, the Secret Service agent exited the aircraft and the PIC subsequently refused to let the agent reboard the aircraft to recover his coat. American flew the agent to Texas the next day, which presumably generated another set of clearances, and some peed-off agents at Secret Sevice on this incident ever having happened. (The Secret Service has a strong union, and one ought not be surprised if it turns out that other agents have suggested to this agent that he should consider sueing American.)
Now that POTUS has become personally involved in the manner that he has, the PIC is probably going to be put through the ringer. One can presume that the nature of the discrepancy was explained to POTUS before he made his statements, and that POTUS considered it to be just so much heifer manure.
And the Secret Service is probably not beyond exacting a little revenge on the PIC if it so desired. They could start by pushing the DOT to remove his clearannce to fly to DCA (if he has been cleared under new security protocols), expand it to BWI and IAD, or even add JFK, LGA, EWR, BOS, and who knows where else as well. And I do recall, perhaps inaccurately, that the Secretary of the Treasury (the agent's ultimate boss) sits on the group that decides how much individual airlines get of the post Spet. 11 bailout money. American got about $360 million in the first set of payouts.