The committee chairman, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, said the agents can shed light not only on the March 4 incident, "but also on why the Secret Service appears to be systemically broken and in desperate need of both leadership and reform."
Chaffetz had asked Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy to allow four agents and officers to testify at a hearing last week on the March 4 incident. Clancy declined the request and instead testified as the sole witness.
At that hearing, Congressman Chaffetz accused Clancy of "keeping Congress and the American public in the dark."
The committee is investigating allegations that two senior agents had been returning from a night of drinking at former Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan's retirement dinner when they nudged with their car the barrel-shaped barrier that had been erected around a suspicious package being investigated as a possible bomb.
Chaffetz said the committee's top priority in its investigation is to ensure that the Secret Service keeps the president and his family safe.
Clancy has responded to criticism of how the agency handled the incident by saying that he was not told about it for five days, which he called unacceptable. He only learned about the incident, he said, from conversations about an anonymous email that was circulating within the agency.
— Hennie Kriel (@LittleManKriel) March 23, 2015
The email described the off-duty agents as "both extremely intoxicated" and confused about the investigation activity. It said uniformed Secret Service officers at the scene "were going to arrest both of them, but the UD (Uniform Division) watch commander said not to."
The Homeland Security Department's inspector general is investigating allegations against the agents.
The alleged drunk driving incident is one in a list of very public missteps that have brought embarrassment to the agency and caused its competency to be questioned. It is not, however, the most recent black eye inflicted upon the agency.
That came Monday, when the Justice Department announced that it had charged a former Secret Service agent – along with a former DEA officer – with stealing money he acquired while investigating Silk Road, the online drug marketplace.
Other high-profile security lapses include allowing a person with a weapon and criminal history into an elevator with President Barack Obama, and a man jumping a White House fence and reaching the East Room.
In January, 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.
