I wouldn't assume that the FAA "representative" was anything more than an FAA employee not tasked w/ this responsibility. FAA employees are used all the time to test security by intentionally trying to get thru w/ weapons, etc. Those employees have no authority to challenge anything, just to walk through. I know someone who is such an employee.. airport security has nothing whatsoever to do w/ her job - they just pull her as a supervisor, put a gun in her purse, and send her thru the gate. So conceivably, the FAA person who witnessed this could have been almost a bystander.. in which case, they would have been inclined to go up their own chain of command rather than challenging the rent a cops at the security checkpoint?