Key lawmakers fired off an angry letter to Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy Sunday, pressing him to allow four witnesses in an ongoing investigation of a March 4 incident at the White House to testify before Congress.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said they were “very disappointed” to receive a letter from Clancy informing them that he would be the sole witnesses at a Tuesday hearing.
The committee had sought testimony from four other individuals who witnessed the sequence of events that took place earlier this month, in which two senior agents allegedly drove into an active crime scene investigation of a suspicious package and were accused of drinking and driving their government-owned vehicles.
“We invited additional witnesses to answer fundamental questions about the incident and the agency’s response that you have been unable to answer during two congressional hearings and one closed-door briefing for a bipartisan group of members and their staff,” they wrote.
The lawmakers specifically asked for Clancy to allow testimony from Capt. Michael Braun, a senior official in the Uniformed Division, whom Clancy identified at a previous hearing as the supervisor on duty March 4. Braun reportedly overruled lower-level officers who wanted to give the pair of agents in question a sobriety test and let the two go home.
In addition, they asked to hear from Special Agent in Charge Robert Buster, Assistant to Special Agent in Charge Thomas Rizza and Assistant Agent in Charge Kimberly Tello.
Chaffetz and Cummings said it’s impossible for them to do their jobs and identify whether the circumstances the night in question are indicative of larger security gaps if the witnesses don’t testify.
The pair of lawmakers also said Clancy’s “failure” to turn over additional video footage of the incident is hindering the panel’s effort to understand what happened during the March 4 incident.
In the letter, the lawmakers said they specifically invited four officers and agents who are in a position to know what happened that night to testify.
They chastised Clancy for failing to say why these witnesses could not attend the hearing and failing to provide alternative ways the panel might be able to attain the information.
“Your position is not acceptable — both because of the public interest in transparency with respect to the agency’s ability to protect the president and his family and because you have not answered our questions adequately to date,” they wrote.
