“If it is determined that any of our employees failed to report information about this alleged incident, they will be held accountable,” Clancy stated at a Congressional oversight hearing. “Our mission is too important for this to happen, it undermines my leadership and I won’t stand for it.”
On the evening of March 4, an individual in a vehicle placed a suspected bomb at an entrance to the White House before speeding off. The Secret Service was allegedly slow to respond to the bomb threat and failed to notify the Washington, DC police bomb squad.
The incident wasn’t reported to Secret Service Director Clancy until five days after the incident, and only then through an anonymous e-mail circulating through the agency. Meanwhile, much of the Secret Service security video footage related to the scene was deleted.
Clancy said it was unacceptable that he learned of the incident five days after the it had occurred, adding that the Secret Service would resolve communications and chain of command problems.
Inference of the crime scene by secret service agents, allegations related to Secret Service communications and the allegedly drunk agents, and the agency’s apparent “botched response to a bomb threat” all bring up concerns about the agency, Chaffetz said.
The Office of the Inspector General is now overseeing an investigation into the March 4 incident, while the US Congress is also conducting a separate investigation. However, at Tuesday’s hearing, members of Congress were vocally upset that the Secret Service has not handed over all videos and information related to the March 4 incident.
The Secret Service has recently come under scrutiny after a string of high-profile security lapses, which included allowing a person with a weapon and criminal history board an elevator with US President Barack Obama, and a man jumping a White House fence and reaching the East Room.
In January 2015, a drone landed on the White House lawn, heightening concern over the Secret Service’s ability to respond to small drone threats. In 2012, several Secret Service agents lost their job after they brought prostitutes into the hotel in Cartagena, Colombia before the President arrived for the Summit of the Americas.
