THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security intelligence official in charge of tracking cross-border threats was escorted from his office on Monday by federal police and security after an afternoon search that left his office sealed with crime tape, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the events.
The official in question is Brian Sulc, executive director of the Transnational Organized Crime Mission Center at DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis in Washington. Sulc has been placed on administrative leave. He is under investigation for an alleged security violation, bringing a personal electronic device inside the secure office, where phones and electronic devices are prohibited. He has not been arrested nor charged with a crime.
At about 4:15 p.m. on Monday, three squad cars from the Federal Protective Service — a DHS law-enforcement body tasked with protecting the department and federal buildings — drove into DHS’s northwest Washington complex with flashing lights. The FPS officers joined security on the third floor of the secure building to search Sulc’s office. While they were doing the search, Sulc was escorted out of the building flanked by security and FPS and taken to a different location on the DHS campus for questioning, two sources said.
The office has been sealed shut with crime tape, and evidence seals were placed around the door and across the keyhole so no one can enter.
Sulc is in charge of the office that produces intelligence assessments on border security, the opioid epidemic, and other high-stakes policy issues. Those assessments include intelligence on how fentanyl is crossing into the United States, as well as attempts to identify cartel members and human-trafficking operatives on both sides of the border. They’re used to inform policy decisions at the highest levels of DHS and elsewhere in the Biden administration.
“He is a big deal,” one source with direct knowledge of the search of Sulc’s office. “He does the border, all the big issues and crises. This is why this is all so shocking.”
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