Three Secret Service agents became the first to fall in the Colombian prostitution scandal today, with the agency announcing that two supervisors and one agent will step down.
Eight more remain under investigation and on suspension as one of the supervisors retired, the other was “proposed for removal for cause” (which can be challenged), and the agent resigned.
“The Secret Service continues to conduct a full, thorough and fair investigation, utilizing all investigative techniques available to our agency,” the assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service Office of Government and Public Affairs, Paul Morrissey, said in a statement. “This includes polygraph examinations, interviews with the employees involved, and witness interviews, to include interviews being conducted by our Office of Professional Responsibility in Cartagena, Colombia.”
Over on the Hill, the chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote the Secret Service director, Mark J. Sullivan, a letter that accused the agents of bringing the prostitutes into contact with “sensitive security information.”
The letter was first released to ABC News’ Jake Tapper, then Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.) tweeted a copy.
Issa and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) noted that Sullivan briefed members early this week on “steps the agency has taken to investigate this matter and your plans for preventing a recurrence.”
“The facts as you described them raised questions about the agency’s culture,” the congressmen wrote. “The incident in Cartagena is troubling because Secret Service agents and officers made a range of bad decisions, from drinking too much, to engaging with prostitutes, to bringing foreign nationals into contact with sensitive security information, to exposing themselves to blackmail and other forms of potential compromise.”
The committee leaders then asked Sullivan for 10 things to aid the Oversight investigation, including a detailed description of events and timeline, an accounting of all U.S. government personnel who knew about the incident, and the agency’s investigative findings including information received from Colombian authorities.
Issa and Cummings also want the disciplinary histories of the agents involved dating back 10 years, and summaries of any other disciplinary actions that were taken against any other personnel as a result of misconduct on overseas trips since 2007.
“Has the USSS been able to determine that all women involved in this incident were at least 18 years of age?” the letter asks, noting that the involvement of underage prostitutes violates the law under which a U.S. citizen traveling to a foreign locale cannot engage in “illicit sexual conduct.”
“Your swift and decisive action in response to this scandal has given us confidence that the agency will complete a thorough investigation and take steps to ensure that similar lapses in judgment will never again jeopardize the important work of the U.S. Secret Service.”
Issa and Cummings told Sullivan that “your task is to restore the world’s confidence in the U.S. Secret Service.”
The New York Times got the first interview with the prostitute whose argument over payment led to the discovery of the activities of the Secret Service agents and a handful of military personnel under investigation by the Department of Defense.
She claimed she was a high-priced escort and charged the agent $800 when he offered only $30. She also noted that not only did she spend the entire night in the agent’s room, only to be woken by a call from the front desk, but when she wanted help getting her money she fetched another prostitute who had stayed the whole night with an agent across the hall.
The woman told the Times that she was not interested in cooperating with American investigators and is planning to leave Cartagena soon.
Talking with reporters en route to a President Obama speech in Ohio today, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the scandal wasn’t detracting from Obama’s economic message and quest to cast government as a force for good.
“The president has been crystal clear since he was a candidate about the standards that he insists be met by those who work for the federal government and on behalf of the American people and for the American people,” Carney said.
“You have heard the president speak recently on the matter involving the Secret Service. I don’t have anything to add to that.”
“incident brought foreign nationals into contact with sensitive security information.”
Because that’s Congress’s job.
“incident brought foreign nationals into contact with sensitive security information.”
It’s not the only thing they got brought into contact with….
fap
Heads rolling?
wait, who’s dead? I mean, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata are dead and, as far as I know, theirs are the only heads that have rolled so far. Oh wait, I think that 200+ Mexicans heads have also rolled.
what’s different here?
Apparently the Secret Service decided to take on the challenge that’s eluded Obama: stimulating the economy.
Some USSS were stimulated. Money changed hands. Obvious questions:
- How many jobs were saved or created?
- Does this fall under the “individual mandate?”
- Doesn’t the EPA have a regulation that covers this?
head rolling costs extra, let’s see that gold card again.
I keep my “sensitive security information” in my pants in case you’re looking.
I’ve heard a lot of words on this “scandal” and no one has succeeded in getting to the likely truth. This probably was an Obama purge of the security services for unknown but easy to speculate reasons. Perhaps the O is getting nervous about grumbling in the ranks.
…just a little hokey…
I personally don’t care, as this was brought to light over a $50 dispute, allegedly. Those guys get paid squat, and hey, they may be shot at or blown up; so they may have some free time to do whatever they want and they get bored. Big whoop.
jeesh, what’s squat to you? starting pay for these guys is $44k to $74k. That’s for starters and none of these guys look like beginners….and doesn’t include perks like free travel to Colombia, free hotel rooms, Gov’mint credit cards, free-ish health care, and really great squirt guns.
If they’re exempt from ObamaScare, sign me up.
The reason why this is a big deal is because it is behavior that can be used to blackmail agents involved with the president’s security.
If you like Obama or not, this is not the type of behavior that should be condoned.
And the last time there was an similar incident with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve, you get it… secret service agents was…
What is it that makes me suspicious that our lovingly, patriotic, conscientious, taqiyya-spewing president and his friends, say, eric holder, set this in motion?
There’s more here than meets the eye. These folks are hellbent on the destruction of the United States.
“The reason why this is a big deal is because it is behavior that can be used to blackmail agents involved with the president’s security.”
Well they can’t be blackmailed once it hits Reuters, so what’s the big deal now?
Wait until the truth about the dog, and how the evidence was destroyed, surfaces.
Sorry. Duh. What dog? (I love dogs!)
It is classic management theory that values filter down from the top of an organization. If the man at the top is corrupt, corruption will filter down to all levels of the organization.
President Obama has recently been campaigning against the “do nothing Congress” just as President Truman did so many years ago. Obama loves to “channel” many great presidents in the hopes that the electorate might come to believe that he is among the greats.
With respect to this scandal, I wonder if President Truman’s famous desk sign is still in the Oval Office. You remember. The one which proclaims,”The Buck Stops Here!”
Nah! Probably not.
I have repeatedly stated, since this scandal broke, that a party hearty POTUS, one who admires the boys from the ‘hood, has a ‘working’ relationship with the Black Panthers,(its leader is a well received visitor at the WH) plus has an AG which aids him in inciting heated racial tensions, is one who will (if he could) high five these guys, even if not in the vicinity of the partying.
The saying, the fish stinks from the head up, is another way of saying, the buck stops here.
Please see my posting below. It rounds out the picture very nicely, and from a position of knowledge ‘inside the culture’.
“Step down” — yeah, that’s it. Like they’re doing us a favor. I want charges pressed. I want punishment and hefty fines placed. These men are traitors and low-lifes. They dishonor their oaths. And if we buy into this “boys will be boys” crap, well, we will deserve the social misery we bring upon ourselves. Sorry to sound like such a prude, but proper conduct and self-restraint matters. Service TO THE NATION matters.
Agreed. It’s not as if they had to take vows of chastity. All they’re asked to do is keep it in their pants when they’re on a mission.
Ha! You put it perfectly. Whatever happened to just doing the job? Cheers!
Whatever happened to getting the money up front? I thought that was Rule No. 1 for a working girl.
And keeping your mouth shut afterwards! They just destroyed the Colombian hooker business.
“A blow for freedom!”
“The Dog Stops Here” After being suitably prepared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He82NBjJqf8
One has to wonder if one of the prostitutes had been a homosexual rent-boi, would that have been protected conduct?
Surely open homosexuals are now allowed to serve in the Secret Service, right?
just followin the boss’s lead if you ask me.
You would have to be a saint to be around all that criminality 24×7 and not begin to want some cookies of your own.
Hey, the Secret Service has doubtlessly run their own informal security check on the marxist and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the guy should be in jail for thousands of years, for hundreds of reasons, both before and after his anointing. And THEY are charged with protecting the guy. It has to poison a person’s mind.
Since we haven’t been informed by the watchdog media about the ethnicity of the perps, it’s safe to assume that quite a few of the bad boys are members of the preferred race.
You mean if Barry had a son in the Secret Service, he might just look like one of these horn dogs?
Yeah. I can see that.
The fall guy(s) will be white.
Couple of comments, first, are any of the evil doers affirmative action Holder’s people? Just asking!
Second, all meetings/conferences or gov’t folks, now and in the past, have parties/celebrations. Every Congressional boondoggle over the years has probably had some party where the attendees were well fed.
Foreign entities welcome the opportunity to “host” US government folks, have you never been to a South Korean ginseng party with local scotch and hookers?
Q: How do you make a hormone?
A: Don’t pay her.
What I want to know is, did these guys break some law? Which law? Which country’s laws prevail in that circumstance? Ours? Or the other country’s? Theirs, right? Do our agents have diplomatic immunity in such a case? I suspect so. Thus, no crime.
Besides, I thought it was “just sex”? Were they using their own money? Well, the hotel rooms were likely paid for by the government, yes, but it is not like these guys have a choice as to where they may be. Were they on the clock? Probably not.
Some dudes paid for a hooker.. and maybe, at that. There might have been some misunderstanding, right? Maybe someone did not know they were supposed to pay and said, ” I ain’t paying for sex.” Indeed, that may have been followed by, “That would be illegal, and as a Fed, I am not allowed to do that.” So, the stink is that someone REFUSED to commit a crime, to pay for a prostitute? (Assuming it is a crime in that environment.)
This is murky. I just do not get this scandal. I don’t approve of prostitution. I know what it does. However, like the Left and the “Independents” like to say, they are adults, right?
There just are not enough facts to justify this big of a stink.
Of course, if it had happened under Bush….
This country has gone insane.
I remember reading about the Kennedy White House. One of the SS agents was aghast when they went to someplace like Cincinnati and the local sheriff brought hookers in for JFK, Dave Powers, and a few others. The sheriff just blew in with the girls and they went straight into the Presidential Suite. The SS agent wrote that he had never felt so totally useless. His comment was, “I’m supposed to be protecting the President’s life. Hell, I can’t even protect him from a dose of clap.”
I’d bet money the Obama bunch is worse than the Kennedy bunch. There are going to be some ugly stories come out after this batch gets booted out of the White House. I hope Romney has someone ready to steam-clean the place on Jan. 20 because it’s damned well going to need it after four years of Obama’s scum.
Very clean.
Bridget, I am less than six degrees separated from the hard charging, very macho centered law enforcement culture. I am not referring to the beat cops, but to the elite Detective squads, often the ones who interface with their FBI/CIA/Secret Service counterparts. I know this culture VERY well.
Suffice it to say, that whatever has already dripped out, regarding this serious intel breach, is just the tip of the of the spear. I know-for a fact-that those in sensitive security positions, who are heavy drinkers, (many of them highly functioning alcoholics)also frequent prostitutes, many dabble in coke too.
Therefore, the above should point to the most salient observation of all-a person in a highly classified, sensitive security position who drinks to excess, is a person who is (more than) likely to run his mouth-in more ways than one!
Posters, trust me on this. I know what I am talking about, disturbing as this situation is.
Trust you? Everytime, Adina. You’re one of the best of the many great posters on here. Keep it coming and thanks!
Thanks Alan. Unfortunately, I been immersed in things most have no stomach for, nor wish to encounter in a lifetime.
It is through this work that I have been able to ‘see’ things from the inside out. Most importantly, my access to high level law enforcement gives me a birds eye view.
My forensic work (having followed the money, laundering trail)with foremost investigative journalist, Lee Kaplan, regarding the ISM’s (International Solidarity Movement) terror ties, is illustrative of the above. Google, ‘Does the pro-terror left violate US tax laws?’ just as an example. At the end of the expose you will see my name. Due to business interest-at that time-I declined by-lines.
We worked on this investigation for 4 yrs(2003-2007) and developed a series of exposes on all our results. I personally handed all of our findings to the Criminal Fraud Division of the IRS in Newark, NJ. We had a full binder of exhibits, cross references, documentary evidence, proving not only that the ISM violated non-profit tax laws, but were/are DEEPLY embedded with the terror hydras of the Muslim Brotherhood, specifically Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Guess what? They NEVER lost their non-profit, tax exempt status! That tells us all we need to know…..
BTW, the above series, re the ISM, was featured at FrontPageMagazine.
No surprise that morons who ask Americans to put their pencils away cuz they might stab the President in the eye while he’s shaking hands don’t have a grasp on what actually constitutes a threat.
Nothing like giving some hooker a pencil to stab your own career with, either by blackmailing it or ending it.
And 800 dollars? In South America? How stupid can one get? Men that naive have no business even leaving the country let alone guarding our President outside of it.
Precisely. Never just GIVE away your power. But the exotic gals were sweating these lonely guys (often of their own choosing, unacceptable demeanor, or bad luck), and there’s little meaning of living without a somebody who even pretends to care. Someone to share yourself and thoughts with. Sad, but security is the entire mission, so they were…wrong. No mabey’s about it.
The ‘culture’ of the Secret Service? It appears to be pretty much like the culture of Hollywood. That’s bad now?? Is the beef that the ladies were underpaid, not receiving a fair minimum wage? The revered concept of sex as a private matter between consenting adults is now void? Congress is in snit because it reflects badly on our moral values; priceless. This demands a special blue ribbon commission. I recommend that it be composed of Bill Clinton, Elliot Sptitzer, John Edwards, Barney Frank, and Anthony Weiner. I would also include Bill Maher, not because he is much of an authority on anything; mereley because he is such a prick and would feel right at home. The commission should have unlimited funding and an adequate supply of condoms and penicillin.
Until we hear about drug tests for the Secret Service agents & Military personnel involved — specifically tests using hair samples — we are simply seeing politics/damage control and not investigation.
I was surprised at the level of stupidity. I worked with some SS guys during by police career. However, my ex-partner had a long and storied relationship with the feds from Customs to FBI, to DEA to the Secret Service. He is MENSA bright and intolerant of stupidity. He simply said “Doesn’t surprise me a bit. Remember how the SS downloaded porn into the White house a while back? They are boneheads and ignorant to a fault!” He went on to relate some stories to me that made me wonder just how we manage to catch anybody at the federal level without finding half the feds involved locking themselves into a closet by accident.
Now some of them are great and smart guys, dedicated. The rest are pension pushing lovers of the power and the “coolness” being an agent brings.
Obviously that is the group that thought hooking up with underage prostitutes was a good idea.
Idiots.
I join with those voices who wonder why heads have not rolled at the Dept. of Justice for Fast and Furious. This administration is a disaster. Vote these people out, in November!
Congress is not doing its job. Their job is not to demand the titillating, head line grabbing, Photo-Op questions. Their job is to set legal policy.
The key policy question is this. What does it take to fire a government employee for cause? Firing for cause is common in the private sector. What are the standards and why are there differences?
In the private sector, an employee, fired for cause, is ordered out of the facility, often with security personnel, in one hour. All benefits, including retirement are stopped. Every thing is documented.
This is not just about the Secret Service, or DoD. The question is common to the defunct Mineral Management – BP well blow out party guys, the GSA party guys, the New Orleans levee party guys, the NIH penis size of gay men study , and all tax wasting expenditures.
The key question for voters is there anyone in Washington who cares, in the slightest, about spending our grand kids’ money? Is there any hope that waste will stop? If 1/2 of the government work force was terminated, would conditions improve?
We will get the answers in November.
Don’t think we’ll make it to Nov. if it doesn’t look good for the shia caliph. They’ve been riggin’ like heck only to see it all flushed? Not sure about November ~
I always wonder what is happening in the background we are not supposed to notice when stuff like this makes the news.
Interesting to me how a sex scandal is front page w/Issa and King’s interest, but Fast and Furious has quietly fallen by the way side.
Also interesting is that this scandal happened under Obama’s admin, somehow it just seems fitting.
Absolutely true! Holder gets by with stonewalling the investigation of the Fast and Furious MURDERS, while people who stood to take a bullet for Obama are fired for a heterosexual SEX scandal.
Probably, the Secret Service firings are justified, but ignoring U.S. government abetted murders in Fast and Furious while going viral over a sex scandal seems perverted. The left wing media carries a lot of responsibility for this perversion of justice.
And it appears because there were some false statements by those involved, not for the actual behavior. From the article in the NYT, the call girl said that she never knew the USSS officer involved in the payment dispute was anything other than what she thought was a rich foreigner.
It was most likely the coverup not the crime. From her statement to the NYT she claims an agreement for $800 for the night with one officer. Hard to believe that. The rest of her story was that the dispute was the morning after. I don’t believe that the officer agreed to $800, so it could be she demanded money afterward.
In any event, it was two consenting adults and there was no criminal violation. No claim that he was bragging about being USSS. No claim from the girl that any secret information was exposed to her.
Also note that of the three, one resigned, one was allowed to retire and only one fired. If he did not lie, there is a good chance that the Merit Services Protection Board will give him his job back.
How many dogs did the Secret Service eat, OR even service?
The LAP DOG MEDIA better watch their backs.
Over the years, the Secret Service may have performed similarly as they did in Columbia.
Who was more at fault, the Secret Service for allowing John Kennedy to have sex with women other than his wife or John Kennedy for doing it?
Did the Secret Service know about Bill Clinton having sex in the White House, with, as Clinton said, “With that woman”?
Let’s be honest: heads are rolling only because they got caught.
Only those idiots inside the beltway could think that those hookers were just running around planting bombs, and poisoning the wet bars.
I have no doubt they were all thoroughly strip searched and checked out inside and out by multiple agents so nothing was missed.
First though was that the new agents under clinton, are now in charge. Has anyone heard what military branch the other 11 are from? My guess they had stints with the U.N. in their background.
So much for obama’s high ground on the war against women. First the hostile environment in the White House, and now the rape by deception in his foreign visits.
A better question is if there are any agencies that aren’t trash. SS, MM, GSA, WH, Senate, Congress, TSA, homeland, FBI, CIA, SEC, AG, IG. and probably lots more, ALL except for the IG are riddled with sex scandals. Then you have the cabinets, and zars. But der fuhrer isn’t at fault, they are just dumb white guys who can’t help themselves.
To avoid this type of embarrassment in the future, Obama simply needs to create a new czar: a Secret Social & Sexual Services Security Czar. A new building in D.C. will be built for Secret Social & Sexual Services Security Administration(SSSSSA) HQ offices, thus creating hundreds of new jobs. The purpose of the SSSSS Administration & Czar will be to ensure that all Secret Service agents’ social & sex lives are secure and secret. That way, they won’t have to resort to prostitutes. Each country around the world will also have its own local SSSSSA office, with the office manager’s job being to ensure plenty of social people available when a Secret Service agent or agents happen to be in the area. No muss, no fuss. Oh, and how to pay for all this? From Social Security taxes, of course!
Could the real problem be that a small third world country can make a good living selling sex, when our own “great” government couldn’t even make enough to keep the doors open on the brothel they ran.
OMG, now at least one agent had a hooker in the HILTON, as if that isn’t where all of them should be, what better tribute to paris than to be acting out her videos for better foreign relations. Der Fuhrer hasn’t told the truth about anything, yet the SS goon squad must have a higher standard than their boss? They agree to pay, and just like obama they stiffed them at least twice, what is the big deal.