A former Secret Service agent told CBS News that there is a “culture clash” between the president’s protective detail and the CAT teams. CAT members have a history of “working hard and playing hard” while the protective services “are the most disciplined group of people.”
A source in the Secret Service tells CBS News that one or more of the officers were involved with prostitutes and that there was a dispute over payment. One prostitute went to the police, who notified the State Department. The agents stayed at Hotel Caribe, where the international press is staying.
A former agent said the American Embassy in Colombia directed the entire division of 12 to be sent back to the United States because it was an embarrassment for the president and the U.S. The team was replaced before the president’s arrival in Colombia on Friday. The source also said that two of the men sent home were first level supervisors.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed the removal of personnel in a statement and said the agency is taking “allegations of misconduct seriously.”
“There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the president’s trip. Because of this, those personnel are being relieved of their assignments, returned to their place of duty, and are being replaced by other Secret Service personnel,” Donovan said.
The Secret Service spokesman said none of the changes will affect the comprehensive security plan prepared for the president’s trip, and agency officials say this is not an operational deficiency but a “moral” one.
Some point to the incident with Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who successfully crashed a State Dinner at the White House, as a severe breach of security on behalf of the Secret Service.
Ronald Kessler, best-selling author of “In the President’s Service” and a former reporter for The Washington Post, called the dismissal of 12 Secret Service members in Columbia prior to President Obama’s arrival there “the biggest scandal in Secret Service history.”
According to CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante, a source in the Secret Service told CBS News that one or more of the officers was involved with prostitutes and that there was a dispute over payment. One prostitute went to the police, who notified the State Department.
Two of the Secret Service personnel sent home were supervisors, Plante said; the rest were part of a detail assigned to logistics. None of those relieved of duty was a member of the president’s protective detail.
“They don’t have enough agents, they don’t even put people through metal detectors sometimes because there’s pressure to let everybody in,” Kessler said. “It’s like letting passengers in an airplane without putting them through metal detectors. They don’t keep up-to-date with the latest firearms. They don’t even do physical tests. So, it’s a culture that leads to this kind of problem.”
Kessler pointed to a couple crashing a White House state dinner without an invitation as an example of a potential security threat. He said that Mark Sullivan, director of the Secret Service, should have been fired after the fiasco involving gate-crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi, but has continued in the same position because of President Barack Obama’s confidence in the agency.
“President Obama keeps saying, ‘I have full confidence in the Secret Service,'” Kessler said. “You know, he deals with agents who are very admirable, so he thinks, ‘Well, the Secret Service must be fine.’ But, you know, in my book…I go into dozens and dozens of examples of poor management.
“For example, when {Dick Cheney’s daughter] Mary Cheney was under protection, she wanted her agents to take her friends to restaurants. Well, they’re not taxi drivers. They are law enforcement officers, they refused, as they should have, but because of that she got her detail leader removed.
“So the Secret Service management didn’t back the guy who is doing his job. And that kind of culture is the sort that leads to this kind of incident, where there’s poor morale, there’s hostility toward management.”
Kessler called this latest incident in Colombia “a very shocking scandal.”
He added the situation may be a sign of a trend because it involved supervisors. Kessler called it “just unbelievable” and a “tremendous embarrassment to the U.S.” He said that the Secret Service personnel’s liaising with prostitutes could expose them blackmail to acquire access to secure areas. “They could have led to an assassination. And if you have an assassination, you nullify democracy. That’s how important the Secret Service is.”
Kessler went so far as to say the president’s safety is in jeopardy because the replacements didn’t have time to get acclimated to the situation. (CBS News)
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