Has the Secret Service turned its back on President Obama?
They began under Director Mark Sullivan and continued when President Obama replaced him in March 2013 with Julia Pierson, who was grilled Tuesday by House lawmakers over the latest lapses.Details of almost all the breaches and missteps were uncovered by The Washington Post.
Here are the highlights:
November 2009:
A Washington couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, crash President Obama's first state dinner.
The Secret Service later acknowledges that officers never checked whether they were on the guest list.
Are they working as dog catchers today?
A photo emerges showing that they shook hands with the president.
The dog catchers or the intruders?
Sullivan, the director, says that he is “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the breach.
Concerned? Embarrassed? Make him director of dog catchers!
The Salahis parlay their fame into an undistinguished career in reality TV.
November 2011:
A man with a semiautomatic rifle parks in front of the White House and fires at the building, with Sasha Obama inside and Malia Obama on her way home.
A Secret Service supervisor, mistaking the shots for car backfire, orders officers to stand down.
Good thinking.
The service does not figure out that shots hit the building for four days, and only then because a housekeeper noticed broken glass.
Make that woman a supervisor!
The president and first lady are infuriated, The Post reports years later.
April 2012:
Eight Secret Service agents doing advance work for a presidential trip to a summit in Colombia lose their jobs after allegations that some took prostitutes from a strip club back to their hotel rooms.
A Justice Department investigation finds that two Drug Enforcement Administration agents arranged one encounter between a prostitute and a Secret Service officer.
Finally! Cooperation between agencies!
President Obama later says: “When we travel, we have to observe the highest standards.”
Alleged?
A Secret Service supervisor leaves a bullet in a woman's room at the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House, and allegedly tries to force his way into the room to retrieve it.
Be grateful he didn't leave it in the woman.
An investigation finds that the supervisor and a colleague sent sexually suggestive emails to a woman subordinate.
The supervisor loses his job, and the colleague is reassigned.
A Secret Service spokesman says: “Periodically we have isolated incidents of misconduct, just like every organization does.”
WTF??
A Secret Service supervisor was suspended after an incident at the Hay-Adams Hotel, an upscale hotel steps away from the White House.
March 2014:
Three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting President Obama in Amsterdam are placed on leave after a night of drinking, in violation of Secret Service rules.
One of the agents is passed out drunk in a hallway, The Post reports.
The newspaper reports that the three are part of what is known as the counter assault team, a last line of defense responsible for fighting off assailants if the president or his motorcade comes under attack.
Ruth Buzzi would be more effective whacking an assailant with her purse!
Sept. 16, 2014:
In perhaps the most chilling of the Secret Service lapses, a security contractor with a gun and an assault record gets on an elevator with the president during a trip to Atlanta.
The Post, citing people familiar with the incident, reports that the contractor used his cellphone to take video of President Obama and did not stop when Secret Service agents told him to.
You're joking, right?
The Secret Service only learns that the man has a gun when he is fired on the spot and turns it over. President Obama was not told, The Post reports.
Sept. 19, 2014:
An Iraq war veteran with a knife jumps the White House fence, dashes through the North Portico doors and makes it deep inside the building, into the East Room, before he is tackled, and only then by an off-duty Secret Service agent.
The Secret Service first says only that the man was apprehended after getting in the door.
A congressman tells The Post that a security alarm was disabled because staff nearby found it too noisy.