Exclusive: The Secret Service top brass, Cheatle included, hand out bonuses to mid-level managers who cut manpower, resources requests from those Secret Service special agents and officers on the ground in charge of protecting the presidents, vice president, former presidents, etc.
There's a team of special agents or Uniform Division officers (counter snipers are UD, not agents) doing all the advance work on the ground to figure out how many resources are needed. That team includes the lead advance agent, the site agent, the counter sniper team conducting the initial survey of the rally or event venue.
Then those agents/officers (counter snipers are officers, not agents) sends it to the LEAD ADVANCE AGENT -- who then send all their detailed manpower requests to the Assistant Director Protective Operations, or ADPO, back in Washington, a GS-14 or around that level of official, who reviews the plan, looks at all the diagrams, and they decide what kind of resources the event is going to get.
There are almost always cuts, an notion of "do more with less," a source within the Secret Service community tells me.
My sources tell me these GS-14s or around that level of manager, get bonuses based on how much money they can save for the agency based on the cuts.
"They put it in their final reports to their managers, 'Hey, look how much money we saved this year,'" the source continued.. "It's really goofy, because they look a all the diagrams, and in their wisdom back in D.C. -- they're not the ones at the site -- how much, how many resources you're gonna get."