The deputy director of the Secret Service who was caught up in a moonlighting scandal at the agency stepped down Monday and accepted another position with the Department of Homeland Security.
A.T. Smith’s departure marks the fifth senior official to leave the agency in the biggest management shakeup in the agency’s 150-year history after a string of security failures drew intense scrutiny to the agency’s leadership.
“Deputy Director Smith has had an exceptional law enforcement career spanning nearly 29 years within the United States Secret Service. His contributions to the agency have been invaluable,” Secret Service Acting Director Joseph Clancy said in a statement Monday. “Today, I salute his distinguished service to the Secret Service and the nation.”
It was unclear from the statement whether the decision to leave the No. 2 position at the elite agency was up to Smith, or whether Clancy forced him to step down.
In October, the internal DHS watchdog concluded that Smith had ordered a moonlighting operation that diverted members of a special White House “Prowler” unit to protect the assistant of the agency’s then-director at her home in La Plata, Md.
DHS Inspector General John Roth led an investigation into the agents’ diversion, an assignment known within the Secret Service as Operation Moonlight, found “no legal or procedural justification” for it, and said the diversion amounted to a “serious lapse in judgment” on the part of Smith and other top agency officials who ordered it.
President Obama was in the White House on two of those days when the Prowler team was away monitoring the employee’s home, the DHS inspector general team found. The Secret Service is a division of DHS.
Smith and Clancy were scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday.
But Smith’s departure, effective Monday, likely will prevent his appearance.
The move comes as Obama is reportedly close to making a decision to tap a new director at the agency. Clancy, a trusted former official in charge of Obama’s protective detail, is up for the post. Last fall, the president tapped him to serve as the interim director of the agency after former Director Julia Pierson was forced to resign after a series of security failures came to light.
