– ‘Breakdown’ –
The revelations infuriated some members of Congress, already frustrated by Secret Service shortcomings including hard-partying overseas incidents like the one in Cartagena, Colombia in 2012, when a dozen agents were caught soliciting prostitutes.
“Unfortunately this is the last in a long line of episodes somewhat similar – drinking, carousing, on and off duty – that this agency has suffered these last few years,” said committee chairman Hal Rogers regarding the latest White House incident, which includes accusations that supervisors may be protecting agents involved.
“You can’t run an agency like this, for God’s sakes,” he added.
Democrat Nita Lowey said she found Clancy’s testimony “shocking,” and expressed concern he was unable to fire agents for drunkenness at the White House.
“I don’t want a member of the Secret Service, frankly, who’s capable of getting so inebriated that this kind of an action can be accepted,” she told Clancy.
Let them “find another job.”
But Clancy said he needed to let due process play out.
“I don’t have the ability to just fire people at will,” he countered.
Several lawmakers told Clancy that sackings were in order.
“You got a big job and you’re going to have to make heads roll,” said House Republican John Carter, chairman of the panel’s homeland security subcommittee.
The Secret Service’s fiscal year 2016 budget request is $1.9 billion, an annual increase of $273 million, largely for protective efforts ramping up during the presidential election cycle.
Clancy said his agency was seeking $8 million to construct a replica of the White House at a training facility in Maryland that will provide a “more realistic environment conducive to scenario-based training exercises.”
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