President Obama is poised to tap Joseph Clancy, currently the acting director of the Secret Service, to serve in the permanent top post, according to the White House.
Clancy, who served in the agency for nearly three decades before retiring in 2011, formerly served as chief of the agency’s Presidential Protective Division and was by Obama’s side whenever he traveled. The two developed a deep trust.
Respected and well-liked outside and inside the service, Clancy was serving as the head of Comcast’s security operations when Obama called on him to take the job of acting director in the fall after a series of security scandals rocked the Secret Service and forced the retirement of Director Julia Pierson.
“I am pleased that the president has selected Joe Clancy to be the next director of the U.S. Secret Service,” said Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella agency for the Secret Service.
“The president and I considered several strong candidates for the position, including those who had never been with the Secret Service,” he said. “Ultimately, Joe Clancy struck the right balance of familiarity with the Secret Service and its missions, respect from within the workforce, and a demonstrated determination to make hard choices and foster needed change.”
In making the decision, Obama is rejecting the recommendations of an independent panel that reviewed problems at the Secret Service in the fall and argued that the agency was “starving for leadership” and lacked a “culture of accountability.” The panel said that only an outside director with no prior Secret Service experience could truly overhaul the agency and put an end to its “insular” culture.
“The problems exposed by recent events go deeper than a new fence can fix,” the report by the four-person panel said. “Only a director from outside the service, removed from organizational traditions and personal relationships, will be able to do the honest top-to-bottom reassessment” required to truly reform the agency.
In January, Clancy announced a leadership shakeup at the agency, ordering four top Secret Service officials re-assigned to other jobs at the Department of Homeland Security.
Still, the agency’s deputy director, A.T. Smith, initially survived the leadership exodus even though members of Congress, including Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, blamed Smith for several internal agency problems.
Last week, Clancy abruptly announced that Smith, who is close to retirement age, had stepped down from his No. 2 post and was re-assigned to a job inside the highly regarded Homeland Security Investigations unit in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
In his statement announcing the move, Clancy praised Smith for his 29 years of service and said his “contributions to the agency have been invaluable.”
Chaffetz, who led scrutiny of the Secret Service last year and now serves as the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform panel, said he is disappointed that Obama ignored the recommendations of the independent panel.
“The panel made it crystal clear that only a director from outside the agency would meet the needs of the agency today — someone with a fresh perspective, free from allegiances and without ties to what has consistently been described as a ‘good old boys network,’ ” Chaffetz said in reaction to the news Wednesday.
“The good men and women of the Secret Service are screaming for a fresh start. At this moment in time, the Secret Service would best be served by a transformative and dynamic leader from outside the agency,” he continued.
Still, he said he appreciates how available Clancy has made himself over the past few months, as well as the steps he has already taken to implement the panel’s recommendations.
“I look forward to working with him in his new capacity to restore the Secret Service,” he said. “I wish him and the USSS only the best.”
Brian Hughes contributed to this report.
