Skip to main content

3 Secret Service agents benched before Obama trip

The Secret Service sent three agents home from the Netherlands just before President Barack Obama's arrival after one agent was found inebriated in an Amsterdam hotel, the Secret Service said Tuesday.
The three agents were benched Sunday for "disciplinary reasons," said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan, declining to elaborate. Donovan said the incident was prior to Obama's arrival Monday in the country and did not compromise the president's security in any way.

Still, the incident represents a fresh blemish for an elite agency struggling to rehabilitate its reputation following a high-profile prostitution scandal and other allegations of misconduct. An inspector general's report in December concluded there was no evidence of widespread misconduct, in line with the service's longstanding assertion that it has no tolerance for inappropriate behavior.
The agents sent home from Amsterdam were placed on administrative leave, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the disciplinary action. The newspaper said all three were on the Counter Assault Team, which defends the president if he comes under attack, and that one agent was a "team leader."
One agent was discovered highly intoxicated by staff at a hotel, who reported it to the U.S. Embassy, said a person familiar with the situation, who wasn't authorized to discuss the alleged behavior on the record and demanded anonymity. The other two agents were deemed complicit because they didn't intervene despite being in a position to assist the drunken agent or tamp down his behavior, the person said.
"It wasn't like a big, crazy party," the person said.
Obama arrived in the Netherlands early Monday on the first leg of a weeklong, four-country trip. He departed for Brussels on Tuesday night, and there were no known security issues during his stay in the Netherlands.
Before Obama travels anywhere abroad, a slew of Secret Service and other government officials are dispatched in advance to prepare the intense security operation needed to protect the president in unfamiliar territory. Typically, counter assault teams travel with the president in his motorcade and if he came under fire, the team would be called upon to engage any attackers while the president was hustled to safety.
Stricter rules implemented in the wake of the prostitution scandal in Colombia bar agents from drinking alcohol within 10 hours of starting a shift. It's unclear whether the other two agents were drinking heavily or what time any of them would have been expected to show up for a shift.
The Secret Service's reputation for rowdy, fraternity-like behavior snowballed in April 2012 in the run-up to another Obama foreign trip, this one in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, Colombia, where 13 agents and officers were accused of carousing with female foreign nationals at a hotel where they were staying before Obama's arrival.
After a night of heavy partying in bars and clubs, the employees brought women, including prostitutes, back to their hotel. Six of the employees eventually resigned or retired, while others had their security clearances revoked or were removed from duty.
Seeking to turn a page on that chapter in the service's famed history, Obama last year named veteran Secret Service agent Julia Pierson as the agency's first female director and signaled his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service. Less than a year later, two additional officers were removed from Obama's detail following allegations of sexually-related misconduct that came to light after an incident at an upscale hotel next to the White House.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

LG’s first flexible OLED phone due before the year is out

LG plans to launch a flexible OLED smartphone before the end of the year, the company’s VP of mobile has confirmed, though it’s unclear to what extent the work-in-progress handset will actually flex. The OLED panel in question is the handiwork of LG Display according to VP of LG mobile Yoon Bu-hyun, the WSJ  reports, with the proposed device set to launch sometime in Q4. LG Display’s work on flexible OLEDs has been underway for some time, though the company’s efforts have perhaps been overshadowed somewhat by rival Samsung’s YOUM development. Last year, according to a Korea Times report, LG Display was preparing for

Bing Apps for Windows 8 get major updates

Late least year, Microsoft rolled out a half dozen Bing Apps for Windows 8 users, each one focused on a specific category, such as travel and sports. The apps were designed to offer “immersive vertical experiences,” and now, about six months later, a big line of updates for them is being pushed out. Users can grab the updates now by heading into the Windows Store and selecting the updates notification.
Flexible displays are the Future of IT Industry! A part from 4k and smart home appliances, the CES 2013 saw a lot of attention being drawn towards bendable, flexible displays. The elasticised display idea isn’t something new as we have seen hoards of device concepts being crafted around flexible, bendable and even foldable displays. These concept devices give us a futuristic feel, be it a flexible phone to be worn around the wrist or a phone that opens up to turn into a tablet or PSP-like device. But how far is this future? Nokia has been toying with the idea ever since we remember. The technology sounds very fascinating and the possibilities and the extent to which bendable displays could be used are vast and leave us spellbound. However, these have always been concepts and we haven’t seen any device materialise in the real world. There have been several technologies that were conceived in these years and all have been put to their practical use. But the bendable d