Secret Service director resigns after revelations
Pierson leaves in wake of security breaches at the White House
WASHINGTON — Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service, has resigned in the wake of several security breaches.
Pierson offered her resignation Wednesday during a meeting with Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees the Secret Service.
The resignation came less than a day after lawmakers from both parties assailed Pierson’s leadership and said they feared for the lives of the president and others in the protection of the agency.
In a statement, Johnson said that he had appointed Joseph Clancy, a former agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, to become the Secret Service’s acting director.
U.S. President Barack Obama concluded that new leadership and a new direction was needed at the Secret Service “in light of recent and accumulating reports about the agency,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters Wednesday.
On Sept. 19, an intruder jumped over the fence around the White House and made it deep into the mansion. And late Tuesday, the agency acknowledged that just days before that breach, an armed man was allowed to ride in an elevator with the president during an event at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Without directly saying so, Earnest strongly suggested that the elevator incident — and the fact that the White House had learned of it “just minutes” before it was reported Tuesday — tipped the scales against Pierson. “I think you could assume that is part of the recent and accumulating reports” that caused the president to change his view, Earnest said.
It was not clear what had changed since Wednesday morning, when Earnest and other top White House officials took to morning television shows to say that the president retained full confidence in Pierson. But Obama and Johnson ultimately shared Pierson’s assessment she needed to resign for the good of the Secret Service.
“She believed it was in the best interests of the agency to which she has dedicated her career,” Earnest said, and the president agreed. Obama spoke with Pierson by telephone Wednesday and thanked her for her service, Earnest said.
Johnson said that he was directing his deputy at the Department of Homeland Security to oversee an internal review of the Sept. 19 incident.
And bowing to growing demands by Democratic and Republican members of Congress for an outside inquiry, Johnson said that he would appoint a “distinguished panel of independent experts” to report recommendations to him by Dec. 15.
“I will also request that the panel advise me about whether it believes, given the series of recent events, there should be a review of broader issues concerning the Secret Service,” Johnson said in the statement. “The security of the White House compound should be the panel’s primary and immediate priority.”
It is unclear whether the creation of that panel will be enough to satisfy critics of Pierson and the agency, who said over the last 24 hours that they had lost confidence in the agency’s ability to protect the president and his family.