Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy is handling the agency’s latest scandal appropriately, a White House spokesman said on Thursday.
Clancy and Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson both personally called Rep. Jason Chaffetz to apologize for agents who accessed his 2003 application to join the Secret Service and shared information from it to try and embarrass the Utah Republican for doggedly investigating the agency’s myriad scandals as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Their apologies, and promises to hold agents who acted inappropriately accountable, are sufficient responses to a report from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general revealing that at least 45 agents accessed Chaffetz’s unsuccessful application, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Thursday.
“[T]he president certainly has confidence that the appropriate steps will be taken to hold accountable those who didn’t follow those procedures,” Earnest said.
The extraordinary calls to Chaffetz placed by Clancy and Johnson should clearly indicate how seriously the administration considers the matter and how seriously the agency is taking it, Earnest added.
According to the inspector general report, “18 supervisors knew or should have known” that agents were inappropriately accessing Chaffetz’s file, but only one supervisor did anything about it.
“I think they’re demonstrating, the Secret Service, why we’ve been conducting an investigation for the last couple of years,” Chaffetz told MSNBC in response.
Earnest also tried to deflect from the agency’s latest scandal by saying the Secret Service deserves praise for successfully carrying out one of the biggest security operations on U.S. soil over the last two weeks.
“[W]e did see a significant mobilization under the command of the Secret Service over the last week to professionally and effectively provide security for the visiting dignitaries to the United States,” Earnest said, echoing praise President Obama offered.
“That included [Chinese] President [Jinping] Xi, who made a high-profile visit to the United States, including a visit here to the White House,” Earnest continued. “Obviously Pope Francis, as well as more than 100 dignitaries in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.”
“Particularly, when it comes to the pope, there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans” who came out to see the pontiff during his first visit to the U.S. that the Secret Service also kept safe, Earnest continued. “[T]he results of that visit and the security that was provided is a testament to the tremendous professionalism and competence of the men and women of the Secret Service.”
