Citing a lack of cooperation from the Secret Service, Chairman Jason Chaffetz of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued subpoenas for two Secret Service agents to testify to the committee about recent security breaches and other disfunction at the agency. Chaffetz said that Secret Service director Clancy has gone back on a promise to make the two unnamed agents available to be interviewed by his committee, prompting the subpoenas. Within hours, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson fired back a sharply worded statement denying the charges of uncooperativeness along with a veiled threat to defy the subpoenas.
The immediate concern of Chaffetz’s committee is the Secret Service’s apparent mishandling of a March 4 bomb threat outside the White House, but Chaffetz’s statement also said, “Secret Service appears to be systemically broken and in desperate need of both leadership and reform.” Secretary Johnson contends that the Secret Service and his entire department have been fully cooperative, directly contradicted some of Chaffetz’s assertions, and also pointing out that his department’s inspector general is currently investigating the March 4 incident.
The most contentious part of Johnson’s statement, however, addresses the subpoenaing of the two agents in question. Johnson wrote [emphasis added]:
Chairman Jason Chaffetz did not indicate how long the committee would give the agents to respond to the subpoenas.
