Protecting Betsy DeVos Cost $6.24M This Year

Providing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos with round-the-clock protection cost $6.24 million in fiscal 2019 and is projected to cost $7.87 million in the new fiscal year that started Tuesday, according to the US Marshals Service. Politico describes the security as "highly unusual," noting that the Education Department's own security force protected DeVos' last four predecessors. NBC reported last year that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the protection in Feb. 2017, a few days after protesters heckled DeVos at a public school in Washington, DC. The Marshals Service, citing reasons of operational security, declined to disclose "the number of employees providing protection or the nature of threats against the secretary." (More Betsy DeVos stories.)