JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Protecting the president. The Secret Service is the focus of our "Ask CNN" segment today.</s>MICHELLE GENTRY, KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE: Hello, my name is Michelle Gentry, and I am from Knoxville, Tennessee. And my question is, I'm wondering how many different Secret Service agents there are, and what they do besides protecting the president.</s>JIM MACKIN, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, U.S. SECRET SERVICE: Michelle, that's an excellent question. We have approximately 2,800 Secret Service agents throughout the United States, both in field offices in the United States as well as overseas in our foreign offices. Everyone knows that the Secret Service protects the president, the vice president and foreign dignitaries visiting the United States.. However, what they don't know is that many of our agents spend the majority of their time working investigations. These investigations include counterfeiting of U.S. currency, credit card fraud, computer fraud, and other frauds which are committed against the financial institutions in the United States.. The bulk of the agent's day start out with investigations. But that doesn't mean that they won't be pulled for protection assignment. It's a balance that our agents come up with and work with in order to accomplish both our investigative goals as well as our protective mandates. Some of our agents even answer press inquiries, like this one.
Ask CNN: How Many Secret Service Agents Are There and What Else Do They Do Besides Protect the President?