Sex, booze and the Secret Service
When a dozen US Secret Service agents were caught with prostitutes at their hotel in Cartagena, the agency had a problem. The men were in Colombia to prepare for a visit by then-US President Barack Obama in 2012. They were flown home in disgrace, and the Secret Service had to start rebuilding its reputation.
Yet two years later, an intruder armed with a knife barged into the White House after evading eight agents. In 2017, another interloper wandered the grounds for 17 minutes before being caught.
A new book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, argues that the service is still struggling after years of underfunding and a ‘‘bro culture’’ that fostered sex and drinking scandals.
Its inner workings are a far cry from its motto of ‘‘worthy of trust and confidence’’, claims Carol Leonnig, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for her coverage in The Washington Post of the Cartagena shambles.
‘‘Everyone had this impression of the Secret Service agents as these buttoned-down guys, perfect in their diet, their training and, of course, their moral rectitude,’’ Leonnig said.
Julia Pierson became the first female head of the service in 2013, with a mission to clean up its
image. She lasted less than 18 months, partly thanks to the intrusion at the White House in 2014 by Omar Gonzalez.
Leonnig details 11 failures that allowed the Iraq war veteran to walk through the front door, including a dog handler missing a radio alert because he was on his phone while his dog was ‘‘resting’’. Some agents had turned off their radios, while a system to alert security staff was deactivated after a series of false alarms.
A similar litany of mistakes occurred in 2017, when Jonathan Tran leapt the fence on a mission to hand then-President Donald Trump a letter about Russian hackers. A sensor detected him at 11.20pm, but the agent who went
to the scene missed him in the dark.
Tran evaded 15 security staff before he was caught trying to open a door leading to the president’s residence. Motionactivated lights failed and other sensors were turned off – again because of annoying false alarms.
Leonnig argues that resources were stretched by overtime bills from protecting 41 members of the Trump family and administration.
She concludes that the service is spread ‘‘dangerously thin’’ thanks to a remit that includes investigating financial crimes, helping to prevent potential school shootings, and finding missing children.