The Secret Service will add a new chief operating officer position in a continued effort to clean up the agency and restore its once vaunted law-enforcement reputation.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the creation of the new position Friday and said he is embarking on a wide search for the right person for the post.
“As recent events have clearly shown, there is more to be done to promote operational excellence and public trust in the Secret Service,” Johnson said. “But change does not happen overnight.”
In creating the position, Johnson is following the advice of an independent panel that reviewed agency problems over a number of months last fall after a string of security lapses and embarrassing misconduct incidents shocked the American public, as well as lawmakers, who have demanded that the agency clean up its act.
Johnson said Clancy has already has taken several steps to implement changes the panel recommended, including making several difficult personnel changes at the senior leadership level.
“I know also that Joe finds the events on March 4 to be unacceptable, demands the most of his people, and will make the appropriate accountability determinations,” he said. “For my part, I will continue to provide engaged and sustained oversight of the United States Secret Service to ensure that it has what it needs to get the job done.”
Johnson was referring to the latest embarrassing allegations of Secret Service agent misconduct. After a night of drinking early this month, two senior-level agents are accused of entering the White House grounds in a government-owned vehicle and disrupting an active suspicious package investigation.
Uniformed Division officers on the ground allegedly wanted to administer sobriety tests to the pair in question, but a supervisor on the ground that night believed it was unnecessary and let them go home.
Johnson said the COO would be equal in rank to the deputy director, and will serve as the principal administrator and be responsible for planning and directing all business and program activities.
“The position will focus on improving performance, directing coordination and liaison activities, and aligning budgetary and strategic planning efforts,” Johnson said in a statement.
Johnson simultaneously announced the appointment of Craig Magaw to be deputy director of the agency. Magaw, a veteran Secret Service agent, previously served as assistant director of the Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information.
Magaw will fill the post left open by the departure of A.T. Smith, who was reassigned to a DHS job as part of the a major shake-up for agency top brass earlier this year. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy moved out or reassigned four other top officials in the wake of the security breaches at the White House last fall, including a man last year who jumped the fence on the North lawn and made it into the ceremonial heart of the White House.
