Sen. Ron Johnson said Wednesday that he expects the investigation into the latest Secret Service allegations about a drunken incident at the White House to produce initial findings in “weeks, not months.”
Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, said he has spoken to the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth.
The Wisconsin Republican said Roth told him he is working hard to quickly produce at least an interim report into allegations that two agents, after a night of drinking, drove a government-owned vehicle onto White House property and disrupted an active suspicious package investigation.
Initial press reports said the pair of senior-level agents were involved in an accident, hitting a barricade and maybe hitting the suspicious package under investigation. Later reports, however, said the agents were in a government-owned vehicle that was driving very slowly and only “nudged” an orange barrel, but did not knock it over.
“I want to see the facts,” Johnson said in remarks to a breakfast gathering sponsored by WisPolitics, a Wisconsin political news site. “I mean, what’s in the public’s mind right now is some drunks came in and busted into the barricades.”
“I don’t think that’s the reality, but, what does sound like the reality is that the uniformed officers wanted to do a breathalyzer … and they didn’t. That’s a cultural problem.”
Johnson said he has spoken to Roth, who told him it would be “weeks, not months” before he produces an interim report on the incident verifying some of the facts in the case.
Members of Congress grilled Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy Tuesday, taking exception to his reluctance to take steps to send a strong message that misconduct will not be tolerated before the investigation is finished.
Clancy later Tuesday showed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee a surveillance tape of at least part of the sequence of events that occurred the night in question.
Afterward, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the panel’s chairman, said the tape spurred more questions than it answered, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member on the panel, said he feels like he’s on a “merry-go-round” with the Secret Service, stressing again that there is a culture of complacency that needs to end.
Johnson has yet to see the surveillance tape and has doubts about that the incident in question is as explosive as the media has reported it.
Still, after reviewing a string of bad behavior at the agency over the last several years, Johnson is convinced that the agency has a cultural problem.
“We have a culture problem in the Secret Service — it is obvious,” he said. “We had a report issued, study done [that said ] really the bottom line is you need a new director from outside the secret Service.”
“To me it’s obvious there is a cultural problem but it’s being denied,” he said. “There’s one things that pretty universal in this town and that’s the denial of reality.”
The criticism, he said, is not a reflection on Clancy’s 26-year record of distinguished service at the agency. He simply believes an outsider will be better positioned to institute changes the agency needs.
That said, he plans to give Clancy “a little room to maneuver” and a “little breathing space.”
“I’m not going to hop on anybody. I’ve been on this issue for quite some time. I believe there’s a real cultural problem it needs to be fixed,” he said. “But it first has to be admitted and I’m not sure Director Clancy is going to admit it, and that’s the concern.”
