Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told a Senate committee Wednesday that the prostitution scandal involving a dozen agents sent to Colombia to protect President Obama was an isolated incident. But skeptical lawmakers weren’t buying it, citing evidence of dozens of similar incidents over the last five years.
“I continue to believe the problem is broader than you believe,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told Sullivan at a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing.
The agency has disciplined many of the agents who consorted with prostitutes while partying in Cartagena in April while they were making security arrangements for Obama’s trip there for the Summit of the Americas.
Sullivan, who remains highly regarded by lawmakers, apologized for the scandal. But he insisted the misconduct “is not representative of the values and of the high ethical standards we demand from our nearly 7,000 employees.”
Sullivan told the Senate panel that in addition to removing the agents involved, the Secret Service made “enhancements to existing codes of conduct” and implemented new policies aimed at curbing future misconduct.
Sullivan also appointed a high-ranking government official to accompany and supervise Secret Service agents on trips that involve protecting the president or vice president, in an initiative criticized by Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., as providing an expensive baby sitter.
“I’m a little bit confused as to why we would be sending a $155,000 person to basically baby-sit people that you say this hasn’t happened before,” Brown told Sullivan.
Dubious senators spent two hours grilling Sullivan about his efforts to curb what they described as a possible culture of bad behavior by the nation’s most elite executive protection force.
Despite Sullivan’s insistence that the scandal involved only a handful of agents who have since been dismissed, lawmakers cited news reports alleging that the agency has long allowed the kind of behavior exhibited in Cartagena, suggesting the problem was systemic and not isolated.
Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., presented to Sullivan research gathered by his own staff that counted 64 complaints about sexual misconduct against Secret Service agents during the past five years. Lieberman cited among them an allegation of nonconsensual sexual contact and three charges of “inappropriate relationship with a foreign national.”
Lieberman suggested the incidents “should have been a warning of worse to come.”
Collins, the top Republican on the panel, said the decision by agents in Cartagena to bring prostitutes back to their own hotel showed they were not concerned about being caught. That, she said, “seems to reinforce the claim that this kind of conduct has been tolerated in the past.”
Sullivan said the agents in Cartagena “did some really dumb things.” He said he could not explain their behavior, but suggested alcohol “and the environment” were contributing factors.
“I’m confident this is not a cultural issue,” Sullivan told lawmakers. “This is not a systemic issue with us. These are just 12. Our employees make some really critical decisions that, the overwhelming majority of the time, they make good decisions.”
Lawmakers announced at the hearing that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general would conduct an independent investigation of the Secret Service. The examination would be in addition to the Secret Service’s own internal investigation.
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