GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — President-elect Donald Trump has continued employing a private security and intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected to keep at least some members of the team after he becomes president, according to people familiar with the plans.

The arrangement represents a major break from tradition. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security mostly to local law enforcement, according to presidential security experts and Secret Service sources.

“It’s playing with fire,” said Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who worked on President Barack Obama’s protective detail during his 2012 reelection campaign. Having a private security team working events with Secret Service “increases the Service’s liability, it creates greater confusion and it creates greater risk,” Wackrow said.

“You never want to commingle a police function with a private security function,” he said, adding, “If you talk to the guys on the detail and the guys who are running the rallies, that’s been a little bit difficult because it’s so abnormal.”

The associates say Schiller provides more than just security. Trump has been known to ask Schiller’s opinion on all manner of subjects. When people want to reach Trump, they often call Schiller’s cellphone and he decides who gets through to the boss.

Photos often show Schiller looming over Trump’s shoulder as he works crowds, standing sentry by the stage as Trump speaks, or ejecting protesters from rallies. He’s developed a small but avid fan base on Twitter, where Trump supporters cheer Schiller’s confrontations with protesters, pose for selfies with him at events and backstage, and praise him as a brave “American Eagle” who kept Trump “safe & sound.”

While Trump’s Saturday rally in Mobile, Alabama, was the last one scheduled on the tour, he hinted to the crowd that he intends to resume the rallies as president. “This is the last time I’ll be speaking at a rally for maybe a while. You know, they’re saying as president he shouldn’t be doing rallies, but I think we should, right?” he said, prompting loud applause. “We’ve done everything else the opposite. Well, no, this is the way you get an honest word out, because you can’t give it to [he press] because they’re so dishonest.”

pacino wrote:The ambassador is very fat

The Dude wrote:

pacino wrote:The ambassador is very fat

wth

pacino wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:Can the citizens of Arizona sue him and get their tax money back? That's #$!&@ ridiculous.

from an earlier piece:

Arpaio initially said no taxpayer money would be spent on the investigation and that it would be funded through donations to the posse. But he later promised to use the donations to reimburse the county for some costs after it was revealed that he had sent a sheriff's employee to Hawaii as part of the case.

The sheriff won praise in a 2012 tweet from Trump: "Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama's `birth certificate' is fake"

The sheriff has never backed down from the investigation.

Two months ago, he said under oath in an unrelated deposition that the investigation into the birth certificate was ongoing. "And, by the way, that investigation is not done yet," Arpaio testified.

Arpaio has said the investigation was necessary because nearly 250 people tied to an Arizona tea party group raised forgery allegations about Obama's birth record.

phil jackson thinks Lebron is in this posse

The news conference opened with a spokesman criticizing members of the media for critical coverage of the investigation. He then turned the stage over to the outgoing sheriff, who said he hoped to enlighten the public with information on this “fake, fake birth certificate.”

Arpaio insisted that the investigation was not linked to his legal conflicts with the Obama administration; it was about the allegation of a forged document.

“Think of it. We were trying to clear the president,” he said, adding, “It didn’t work out that way.”

Arpaio said he planned on turning over the information to the federal government this month.

According to the theory, the birth certificate presented to the public was created after copying and pasting information from the legitimate birth certificate of a woman born in Hawaii. An accompanying video simulated how the text would have been moved.

Zullo repeatedly stressed that the theory was supported by two experts on two separate continents. He said the investigators analyzed nine Hawaii birth certificates, and that one of them, belonging to a woman named Johanna Ah’Nee, was the source of the copied text.

Reached by The Arizona Republic shortly afterward, Zullo said he obtained Ah’Nee’s birth certificate from a man named Jerome Corsi, who had authored a book on the matter.

Zullo said he was unclear what led Corsi to Ah’Nee in the first place.

“I have to be honest with you, that’s a really good question,” he said. “Because either that’s an unbelievable coincidence, or there’s something else going on.”

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

pacino wrote:The ambassador is very fat

wth

typo. he meant "very dead"

CalvinBall wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

pacino wrote:The ambassador is very fat

wth

typo. he meant "very dead"

#$!&@ post from pacino

pacino wrote:

Reached by The Arizona Republic shortly afterward, Zullo said he obtained Ah’Nee’s birth certificate from a man named Jerome Corsi, who had authored a book on the matter.

Zullo said he was unclear what led Corsi to Ah’Nee in the first place.

“I have to be honest with you, that’s a really good question,” he said. “Because either that’s an unbelievable coincidence, or there’s something else going on.”

GOT EEEEEEM

drsmooth wrote:

pacino wrote:

Reached by The Arizona Republic shortly afterward, Zullo said he obtained Ah’Nee’s birth certificate from a man named Jerome Corsi, who had authored a book on the matter.

Zullo said he was unclear what led Corsi to Ah’Nee in the first place.

“I have to be honest with you, that’s a really good question,” he said. “Because either that’s an unbelievable coincidence, or there’s something else going on.”

GOT EEEEEEM

I know you excerpted a lot, but without knowing who Zullo, Ah'nee & Corsi are, it's still hard to follow for us lazy non-link-clickers

CalvinBall wrote:i mean what is the point in posting that?

pacino wrote:Jerome Corsi is well-known in Obama conspiracy circles to think that Obama is a gay man who is secretly married to another man, is from Kenya, and Michelle is a transgender woman. That the investigation got their info from HIM says all you need to know about this investigation...and it ended up spending public money AND time on it.