Armed Secret Service Pulled a Vance Critic From an Official Event. 'We Know Where You Stand.'

Amanda McGonigle registered for an official, taxpayer-funded visit by Vice President Vance in Bangor, Maine, and waited in line for about half an hour. Then five officials, including two armed Secret Service agents, pulled her out and told her she could not come in. The reason they gave, according to a lawsuit the ACLU filed this week, was blunt: “it’s a private event and we know where you stand.”

It was not a private event. It was government business, paid for by the public, and the thing they knew about where she stands is a joke.

The Woman Behind the Cats

McGonigle runs an Instagram account called CatsOnACouch. She started it in 2024 to make fun of the administration, a nod to Vance’s 2021 line deriding “childless cat ladies.” Her whole offense is mockery, which is about as protected as speech gets in this country. Political satire aimed at the powerful is the exact thing the First Amendment was written to shield.

A Private Party or the People’s Business

The label the agents used matters. If a partisan group rents a hall, it can invite whoever it likes. An official vice-presidential work visit is not that. It is the government showing up on the public’s dime, and the government cannot run a guest list that screens for loyalty.

The lawsuit says this was not a one-off. It points to a second event, in Des Moines, that McGonigle registered for and never got confirmed to attend, while other registrants did. The ACLU calls the pattern First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, and it is suing the Executive Office of the President and the Secret Service.

The Pattern It Fits

Barring a critic from a public event is the same instinct, in a milder key, as sending agents to a critic’s home. Weeks ago, Homeland Security agents visited a man who sent an angry email criticizing ICE, though he was never charged with a crime. Different tactic, same message: the government has noticed your opinion, and there will be a cost.

That is how official events curdle into loyalty rallies. When agents wave supporters through and pull critics out of line, everyone watching learns to keep quiet, which is the point.

What You Can Do Now

Use the letter below to ask your senators and representative to open oversight of the Secret Service and the Executive Office of the President over these exclusions, and to require clear, viewpoint-neutral rules for who may attend official government events.
Call your members of Congress at (202) 224-3121. Ask them whether they believe the government should be allowed to bar people from official public events because of the opinions they post online.
Support the legal challenge. The ACLU’s case will help set whether officials can screen the public by viewpoint. Cases like this are how the right to mock the powerful stays real.