There have been foul-ups and crimes involving agents with the FBI, ATF, ICE, DEA and Border Patrol. Federal agents have shot each other, murdered civilians, blown cases, engineered cover-ups, stolen government money and property, taken bribes, invaded privacy, committed perjury and behaved in conduct unbefitting law enforcement officers.
The Secret Service
There was a Secret Service embarrassment in November 2009 when a couple of reality show types, Tareq Salahi and his wife Michaele crashed a state dinner in the White House. Three Secret Service Agents were disciplined and the White House social secretary, Desiree Rogers, lost her job. In August 2011 a Secret Service agent doing advance work in anticipation of Obama's midwestern bus tour got arrested for drunk driving in Iowa. In the scheme of things these were small embarrassments.
Secret Service Agents and their Columbian Prostitutes
President Obama's plan to discuss trade policies at the Sixth Summit of the Americas held on April 15, 2012 in Cartagena, Columbia did not include the oldest trade of them all, prostitution. (In Columbia it's legal.) Roughly 7,600 police officers and thousands of military personnel were on hand to provide security for the 30 or more heads of state coming to the city. (Think of the money saved if these politicians talked by phone and didn't have to look important to voters back home.) Security measures included keeping homeless people and prostitutes out of certain parts of the coastal city.
President Obama's advanced civilian security detail consisted of 20 or so uniformed and plain-clothed Secret Service agents. Several of the agents were members of the elite, impressively titled, Counter Terror Assault Team (CAT). These CAT agents, known for their heavy drinking and love of partying are separate and somewhat estranged from the more disciplined president's protective detail. The uniformed and CAT agents, along with members of the White House staff and press corps correspondents were staying at the beachfront Hotel Caribe. (The correspondents, instead of filing boring stories about the summit were treated to a juicy law enforcement scandal.)
On Friday the 13th, CAT and uniformed Secret Service agents, as part of their Friday night partying at a Cartagena brothel called the Pley Club, invited at least 20 prostitutes to their rooms. Under Hotel Caribe rules visitors to a guest's room must leave before seven the next morning. People who visit hotel guests have to register at the front desk. At seven in the morning on Saturday a hotel employee noticed that one of the guests had not signed out of the hotel. When the manager went to the room to investigate he was denied entry. The manager called the police which led to the discovery that the guest in question was a prostitute. The prostitute said she was not leaving the hotel until the agent paid for her services. The agent said he didn't know she was a working girl. The Cartagena police called the American Embassy and that's when the pie hit the fan. If the Secret Service agent had paid his $47 bill the scandal would have been avoided.
The Secret Service
There was a Secret Service embarrassment in November 2009 when a couple of reality show types, Tareq Salahi and his wife Michaele crashed a state dinner in the White House. Three Secret Service Agents were disciplined and the White House social secretary, Desiree Rogers, lost her job. In August 2011 a Secret Service agent doing advance work in anticipation of Obama's midwestern bus tour got arrested for drunk driving in Iowa. In the scheme of things these were small embarrassments.
Secret Service Agents and their Columbian Prostitutes
President Obama's plan to discuss trade policies at the Sixth Summit of the Americas held on April 15, 2012 in Cartagena, Columbia did not include the oldest trade of them all, prostitution. (In Columbia it's legal.) Roughly 7,600 police officers and thousands of military personnel were on hand to provide security for the 30 or more heads of state coming to the city. (Think of the money saved if these politicians talked by phone and didn't have to look important to voters back home.) Security measures included keeping homeless people and prostitutes out of certain parts of the coastal city.
President Obama's advanced civilian security detail consisted of 20 or so uniformed and plain-clothed Secret Service agents. Several of the agents were members of the elite, impressively titled, Counter Terror Assault Team (CAT). These CAT agents, known for their heavy drinking and love of partying are separate and somewhat estranged from the more disciplined president's protective detail. The uniformed and CAT agents, along with members of the White House staff and press corps correspondents were staying at the beachfront Hotel Caribe. (The correspondents, instead of filing boring stories about the summit were treated to a juicy law enforcement scandal.)
On Friday the 13th, CAT and uniformed Secret Service agents, as part of their Friday night partying at a Cartagena brothel called the Pley Club, invited at least 20 prostitutes to their rooms. Under Hotel Caribe rules visitors to a guest's room must leave before seven the next morning. People who visit hotel guests have to register at the front desk. At seven in the morning on Saturday a hotel employee noticed that one of the guests had not signed out of the hotel. When the manager went to the room to investigate he was denied entry. The manager called the police which led to the discovery that the guest in question was a prostitute. The prostitute said she was not leaving the hotel until the agent paid for her services. The agent said he didn't know she was a working girl. The Cartagena police called the American Embassy and that's when the pie hit the fan. If the Secret Service agent had paid his $47 bill the scandal would have been avoided.
The initial inquiry into this international embarrassment revealed that at least 20 Secret Service Agents were involved in the scandal, including two supervisors. Also in hot water were at least ten military personnel assigned to the security detail. These military service members were explosive experts and dog handlers from the Navy and the Army. Eleven of the Secret Service agents were immediately sent back to the states and the military people were confined to their quarters. The disgraced agents were gone when Obama and his people rolled into town Saturday evening. The Pentagon and the State Department launched investigations.
New York Congressman Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he didn't think any crimes had been committed by the Secret Service agents. However, Mr. King did consider the alleged behavior a "dereliction of duty."
Ronald Kessler, a former reporter with the Washington Post who wrote a book about the Secret Service that details how cutbacks and corner-cutting had seriously attenuated the agency's effectiveness, called the affair the biggest scandal in Secret Service history. Kessler believed the offending agents should lose their top secret security clearances. (Agents involved in the scandal had President Obama's schedule in their rooms.) Without security clearances these men could not remain with the agency. Kessler also believed that Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan should step down. He did not.
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