WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Newly released US government documents confirm Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan misused agents to guard a lady friend in 2011, Judicial Watch said in a statement.
“[The documents] shed light into a scandalous operation in which agents were covertly redeployed from the White House compound to protect a close friend of the agency’s director during a dispute with a neighbor,” the statement said on Tuesday.
In July 2011, Sullivan ordered Secret Service agents to protect his assistant Lisa Chopey over five days after she got into a fight with a neighbor in La Plata, Maryland.
“At Chopey’s request, the agency opened a federal investigation into the neighbor, Mike Mulligan, and surreptitiously redeployed agents assigned to the White House to guard her,” Judicial Watch said.
“Chopey accused Sullivan of ‘disturbing the peace’ by riding noisy ‘four wheelers’ around the neighborhood,” Judicial Watch said.
The new documents were released as the Secret Service is still reeling from other embarrassing incidents, the last one taking place three months ago.
On May 14, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Inspector General confirmed in a report that Secret Service supervisors Marc Connolly and George Ogilvie were probably impaired by alcohol when they drove into the White House grounds on March 4, 2015, disrupting an active investigation scene.
The Secret Service is an agency operated under the US Department of the Treasury. It is tasked with protecting the life of the President of the United States.
