The German shepherd, who was removed from the White House in October, bit U.S. Secret Service agents in at least 24 incidents at the White House and other locations, according to internal documents and emails released under the Freedom of Information Act.
That tally doesn’t include Commander’s previous attacks, which reached more than 10 known incidents by January 2023.
The newly-reported cases involved multiple members of the Secret Service, some of whom were bitten at Biden’s homes in Wilmington, Delaware and Nantucket, Massachusetts, as well as at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
“They’ve been heartbroken over this,” a source close to the Biden family told CNN.
“They’ve apologized to those who have been bitten, taken flowers to some,” the source continued. “They feel awful. Commander was over-protective, and even though they tried and tried to work on it, they had to let him go live with other members of their family.”
Secret Service agents had to “adjust [their] operational tactics” around Commander so they could still protect the president, an unnamed agent wrote in an email from June 2023.
The email advised agents to “give lots of room” for the dog, to stay “a terrain feature away if possible,” and urged personnel to “be creative to ensure our own personal safety.”
In April 2023, an unnamed Secret Service employee said Commander “jumped at me and bit me in the left arm.” The person said they “sustained two (2) puncture marks and the skin was broken with blood present” as a result.
The Freedom of Information Act request that produced the documents appears to have been filed by a California-based blogger, who posted his findings this week. The documents have since been reported by CNN and other news outlets.
The White House did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
The documents further revealed Commander, who first joined the family in late 2021 and started making headlines for his bites in October 2022, was often accidentally unleashed.
In one email, Commander is described lunging at an agent in June 2023 and delivering a “deep bite” to his left arm. The wound not only required stitches, but halted White House tours for 20 minutes as blood covered “the floors in the area of the Booksellers” Hall.
According to another message, Commander attacked a security detail at Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach in July 2023. First lady Jill Biden had purportedly let the dog off its leash before he “ran toward” an agent and bit him in the forearm.
The email described “a severe deep open wound” that saw the agent lose “a significant amount of blood” and required him to receive six stitches and antibiotics.
The Biden family ultimately determined Commander had to be rehomed for everyone’s safety in October.
Commander is the third dog to have lived in the White House during the Biden administration, but is not the first to have attacked personnel. The president’s previous dog, Major, injured a Secret Service agent in 2021 before being permanently resettled in Delaware.