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The Trump administration has shut down TSA’s controversial Quiet Skies program, but House Republicans’ top investigator wants to know just how bad things got under President Biden.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer said he tried to investigate the program last year, but Mr. Biden’s team at Homeland Security stonewalled his demands and blocked him from getting the information he requested.
The Kentucky lawmaker, in a letter being first reported by The Washington Times, asked new DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to provide what the Biden officials would not.
His request comes just weeks after Ms. Noem shut the program down, and after she revealed startling allegations of favoritism and retaliation.
In one instance last year, Tulsi Gabbard, at the time a former congresswoman and now director of National Intelligence for President Trump, was placed on the Quiet Skies list after she criticized Mr. Biden. Then, in a newly revealed incident, a senator’s husband who was placed on the list after traveling with a person identified as a potential terrorist associate was given a special exclusion after the Democratic senator inquired about it.
Ms. Noem said she found that other people also got special treatment from the Biden team.
Mr. Comer said that needs to see the light of day.
“The maintenance of secret exclusion lists comprising foreign dignitaries, athletes, and select journalists, created an unequal system that undermined both security effectiveness and constitutional principles of equal treatment,” he said in his letter to Ms. Noem. “Such practices represent a fundamental departure from proper administrative procedures and merit thorough congressional examination.”
The Times has reached out to the department for this story.
Quiet Skies, begun in 2010, was an attempt by the Transportation Security Administration to pay extra attention to airplane passengers who don’t appear on other regular watchlists.
They weren’t denied boarding but faced enhanced screening at the airport and could also draw the attention of TSA’s air marshals, both in the airport and during a flight.
The program made news last year when whistleblowers revealed that Ms. Gabbard was added to the list after she criticized then-President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
This year Homeland Security revealed that the husband of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Democrat, was added to Quiet Skies in 2023 after traveling with the suspicious person.
After the senator prodded TSA, he was taken off it.
Ms. Shaheen’s office said she did not request her husband be taken off, and indeed didn’t even know he was on the list. The senator’s office did defend William Shaheen’s travel, saying he is a prominent Lebanese-American and served as a U.S. attorney in the Carter administration.
Mr. Comer, though, said the case was worrying.
“The case involving Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s husband—who received unprecedented exemptions following direct political intervention despite multiple travels with suspected terrorists— exemplifies these problematic practices,” the congressman said.
Mr. Comer, in his letter, asked for an accounting of all people who were exempted or granted waivers from Quiet Skies during the Biden administration, documentation on how names were added or removed and whether there were any demands from the White House or main Homeland Security headquarters to meddle with the list.
Mr. Comer also asked Homeland Security to brief committee staffers on the situation, and turn over documents that Mr. Biden’s team wouldn’t.
“The Biden administration obstructed the committee’s legitimate oversight and failed to provide all of the documents requested by the committee,” he said. “Due to the change in administration and the program’s recent termination, the committee is seeking additional responsive documents and information related to the Quiet Skies program and its implementation.”
Ms. Noem, in canceling the program earlier this month, said it had never prevented a single terrorist attack but cost $200 million a year.
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