Congressional Oversight Leaders Say Secret Service Agents Brought Prostitutes into Contact With Sensitive Security Information
The partying U.S. Secret Service agents and officers who allegedly brought prostitutes into their Cartagena, Colombia hotel rooms brought the call girls "into contact with sensitive security information," the Chair and ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote to Mark J. Sullivan, the director of the U.S. Secret Service today.
Sources tell ABC news that his was a reference to Sullivan, in a Monday meeting with congressional investigators, expressing concern that there was sensitive information in one or more of the rooms at the Hotel Caribe.
The charge is contained in a letter from Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who wrote to Sullivan today that the "nation's capacity to protect the President, the Vice President, and visiting foreign leaders, among others, is dependent on the character and judgment of the agents and officers of the U.S. Secret Service. The actions of at least 11 agents and officers in Colombia last week showed an alarming lack of both.
You can read the letter HERE.
"The facts as you described them raised questions about the agency's culture," the two congressmen write. "The incident in Cartagena is troubling because Secret Service agents and officers made a range of bad decisions, from drinking too much, to engaging with prostitutes, to bringing foreign nationals into contact with sensitive security information, to exposing themselves to blackmail and other forms of potential compromise."
In addition, the committee leaders asked for detailed information about the incident, including a "description of the Secret Service's current understanding of possible agent misconduct that occurred on the evening of Wednesday, April 11 and the morning of Thursday, April 12?; a "complete description and account of all U.S. Government personnel who were involved in or had contemporaneous knowledge of misconduct by agents and officers"; a timeline; summaries of all disciplinary actions since 2002 that have been taken against the 11 agents and officers involved in the Colombian incident; and a determination as to whether "all women involved in this incident were at least 18 years of age."
-Jake Tapper