Again? Secret Service Investigating Whether Agents Hired Strippers & Prostitutes in El Salvador Last Year
- Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:08pm by
Billy Hallowell
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WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — It’s the story that just keeps on giving. The Secret Service acknowledged Thursday it is investigating whether its employees hired strippers and prostitutes in advance of President Barack Obama’s visit last year to El Salvador. The disclosure came hours after the Homeland Security secretary assured skeptical senators that a separate prostitution scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 25, 2012, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Secret Service prostitution scandal that embarrassed the White House and overshadowed the president's visit to a Latin American summit. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
A spokesman for the Secret Service, Edwin Donovan, said the agency was investigating allegations raised in news reports about unprofessional behavior that have emerged in the aftermath of the prostitution scandal in Colombia. The latest, by Seattle television station KIRO-TV, quoted anonymous sources as saying that Secret Service employees received sexual favors from strippers at a club in San Salvador and took prostitutes to their hotel rooms ahead of Obama’s visit there in March 2011.
(Related: New Secret Service Defense: Some Agents Were Too Drunk to Sleep With Prostitutes)
Prostitution is legal in both Colombia and El Salvador.
Separately, the Washington Post earlier this week cited unnamed “confidants” of the Secret Service officers implicated in the Colombia scandal saying senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips. It described a visit to Buenos Aires in 2009 by former President Bill Clinton, whose protective detail it said included agents and uniformed officers. During that trip, the Post said, members of the detail went out for a late night of partying at strip clubs.
“Any information brought to our attention that can be assessed as credible will be followed up on in an appropriate manner,” Donovan said.
The expansion of any investigation into immoral behavior by the Secret Service represents another mark against an agency that has been tarnished by the prostitution scandal. At an oversight hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, senators struggled to reconcile the image of courageous agents assigned to protect the lives of the president and his family with the image of a fraternity atmosphere that has emerged from its investigation in Colombia so far.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised the Secret Service as “wise, very professional men and women” and called it shocking that so many of the agency’s employees were implicated in Colombia.
At the same hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was no evidence of similar behavior, based on a review of complaints during the past 2.5 years to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility. She said that if there was a pattern of such behavior, “that would be a surprise to me.”
The Colombia scandal erupted the morning of April 12, when a fight over payment between a prostitute and a Secret Service officer spilled into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe.
Eight of the Secret Service officers have been forced out, and the agency is trying to permanently revoke the security clearance of one. Three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing but face administrative discipline. One of the Secret Service officers was staying at the Hilton hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, the same hotel where President Barack Obama later stayed for the Summit of the Americas.
Another dozen military personnel also were implicated. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week that all have had their security clearances suspended.
The Defense Department briefed senators on Wednesday about its investigation, but Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday he was unsatisfied with what the Pentagon told lawmakers. Unlike for civilian U.S. government employees, soliciting prostitutes is a criminal offense for U.S. military personnel even in countries where prostitution is otherwise legal.
“Secretary Napolitano and especially the director of the Secret Service has been pretty forthcoming in many aspects of this, unlike the Pentagon, which has completely stonewalled, using the excuse that a Uniform Code of Military Justice – as you know, that’s the military law – somehow is a barrier to us receiving information,“ McCain said Thursday on the CBS program ”This Morning.”
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EP46
Posted on April 27, 2012 at 4:30amHarry Reid has the answer…..standing on the floor of the Senate ole‘ Harry’s response to the Secret Service prostitute scandal ..I quote “Hire more women”….I guess Harry means hire prostitutes as Secret Service members so the guys can take ‘their women’ with them. Harry is the 2nd person on the Left I have heard suggest this solution…just hire the women and send them with the guys !!!
Report Post »TheRabbitFarm
Posted on April 27, 2012 at 12:38amI need a job. Is the SS hiring? I can still party as the rest of them.
Report Post »LetsBeSmartAboutThis
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 11:14pmThis is getting deeper and deeper.
Report Post »loveliberty83
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 10:26pmwell fort Stewart has Obama coming tomorrow almost all gates will be closed 7 when went went there toght they have about 100 trucks back to back around hq only people with invites can see him when Bush came all military & civilians could go to the field & even shake his hand this is a closed post all military were invited
Report Post »go2gym
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 7:22pmIs this a coverup for what Obama may be actually doing instead of the Secret Service?
Report Post »geonj
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 6:52pmit is possible that these advance secret service teams are just doing their jobs. they might be guaranteeing the safety of a president who likes to spend time with escorts. we really don’t know one way or another.
Report Post »USAqh
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 6:23pmNotice that everyone in DC (that is protected by the SS) that has a comment on the SS has nothing but PRAISE for the director? Is the current director of the SS another JEdgarHoover? What does he have on all of them? Wouldn’t you just love to read THAT tell all book?
Report Post »Linny
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 5:28pmPurge
Report Post »lassiegirldawn
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 4:43pmLooks like they can get a job as party planners for the GSA
Report Post »lillymckim
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 4:59pmI’m sure the secret service will get to the truth of the matter after all they are the ones doing the investigating.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 4:41pmWith Obama having to travel so much with the re-elections and all, this is gong to cost the tax payers billions with these sex things going on in every city he goes to. And we all know where the money is coming from, Social Security. Maybe the Obama champagne should be paying some of these cost or better still just ban him from running again, we can’t afford him.
Report Post »TheLiberalsAreComing
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 4:09pmWouldn’t it make more sense to hire the hookers as bodyguards for Obama!
Report Post »After all, he is nothing more than a pimp.
Living In NYC
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:37pmGeez; parties, golf games, late night TV, hot tubs, brothels, hookers, strippers, boozin’, gropin’ and sending nude body scans…. seems pretty much like like the Janet and Barry are not minding the store! Where do I get my application for a great government job and I get paid to play!
The cancer of an organization always starts at the top and the bottom is just the tip of the iceberg!
Report Post »WeekendAtBernankes
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:36pmNo, no, everyone knows this sort of behavior only happens once. It is always caught the moment it begins, the perpetrators are punished immediately, and it never occurs again.
Report Post »PatriotDadOfSix
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:30pm“Secretary Napolitano and especially the director of the Secret Service has been pretty forthcoming in many aspects of this…
Has ol silverback been just as forthcoming about putting a terrorist as her number 2 in command? I think not
Report Post »J.C. McGlynn
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:29pmCan anybody tell me why Janet Napolitano looks scared all the time. She reminds me of what people look like when they are chased in zombie movies.
Report Post »Living In NYC
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:44pmJanet know was a disaster of an organization she has developed and she is just one news story away of rains of truth coming down on her!
I used see that same look on my daughter’s face when she was five years old, just before I caught her in a lie!
Report Post »TheEDGE
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 7:22pmThat’s funny, I was just thinking, she always has the look of a 15 year old boy who just saw boobs.
Report Post »PatriotDadOfSix
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:26pmThis is where this administration want things to go…enable the finest of our organizations to be discredited intentionally. Steering public opinion away from nobility and honor. He’s putting inferior people into positions with the SS..just like he’s done with the Border Patrol. It’s all a design to destroy this country from the inside out.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:23pmWhat is Prostitution… if Janet sells her Body & Soul for Money & Power?
Report Post »pap pap
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:21pm“Too drunk to sleep with prostitutes”
That’s even worse than sleeping with them. Not a very good defense.
Report Post »barber2
Posted on April 26, 2012 at 3:20pmAh. The gift that keeps on “distraction ” giving: something, any thing, to make America look bad and Barack Obama look good , or at least his economic failures not on the front page and the media spotlight. What American icon is next ? Stay tuned for the Democrat Assassination Squad’s next victim.
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